Sketch Prayers

A blessing for you this Easter season:

O Beloved one,
whose face glows with the light of Easter,
you bear the mark of God,
born for this time
and this place.

May God grant you courage
as you walk into the brilliant dawn.
For in your open hands and heart
you will see God.

You journey not alone,
but with the power of God's people near and far,
working together to build a world
of justice and mercy.

Know today
that the love of the risen Christ shines through you
and through the hearts and hands of all of God's people.
Indeed, it is changing the world.

Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Alleluia!

Gerondelis, A. (2018). Open our hearts: Daily prayers for lent and holy week. Wild Goose Publications. https://www.ionabooks.com/product/open-our-hearts/

“…the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

Martin Luther King Jr., "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (speech, Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968)

And a prayer for this MLK Day:

Teach us again, O God
To dream.
That even In the depths of darkness
Our eyes may see your light
Our hearts may be your light
Communities of stars ablaze

May we dare to dream
For love that feels so far away
For radiating light close enough to touch
Brave enough to shine
Strong enough to transform our shared darkness
Into brilliant compassionate love

May blazing stars shine brightly in our darkness
Lighting a way to love.
Amen

A sketch and a prayer for Indigenous People's Day

O God of all time and all people,
What stories do we carry?
What truths are fading from museum walls,
From textbooks, from memory itself –
Erased, lost, unwritten?

Give us courage, O God, to claim the stories of our people,
To name whose lands hold us
To stand with the first people,
To write the truths some fear to tell.
For who are we without our truths, our stories?

Might we become the people who didn’t look away?
Could memory be our medicine
If we choose the harder healing?
May we heed your invitation
To truth-telling, to generous-loving,
To Beloved Community.

Let it be so.

Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes.
It is the pause that transforms.
Walter Brueggemann

Help us, O God
To stop
To really stop
To remember the power of holy rest
To know deeply that we are yours.

Amen

We dare to speak, O God
To sing
To rise

In harmony
In power
In joy.

Fill the spaces between
Our lifted hands and hearts
On this day

For together we are your beloved community
Dreaming the impossible
Daring to be free.

Amen

Oh God of our past and our future,
Bless us with humility and wisdom
That we may grow as we grieve.
Together.
Amen

“…Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division….”

Amanda Gorman
The Hill We Climb
2021

May the power of Easter’s radiant light and love
Pe*****te the dark corners of our world.
Even here
Even now
For you
For me.
May God’s love change everything
For us and through us.
Everything.
Amen



Image from: Gerondelis, A. (20218). Open our Hearts: Daily prayers for Lent and Holy Week. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications.

In these days
it's so easy
to lose sight of hope, of love.
Today we hear again the story of Golgotha.
Oh, what a time. Oh what a place.
But here, tangible hope. Here, love reimagined.
Oh dear God,
who claims people and places again and again,
claim us now.
Claim our streets, our communities,
our countries, our planet and more.
For love.
May our hands and feet
be part of love's unfolding story where we are.
Now. Today.
May love happen here.
Because of you.
Amen


Excerpt from: Gerondelis, A. (2018). Open our Hearts: Daily prayers for Lent and Holy Week. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications

Ground us this day, O God
In your love -
Your tangible
Intimate
Immeasurable love -
That gift that binds us one to another
That binds us to you
Full contact
Messy
Generous
Blessed
Love.
IRL love.
Love incarnate.

Amen


Image from : Gerondelis, A. (2018). Open our Hearts: Daily prayeres for Lent and Holy Week. Glasgow: Wild Good Publications.

O God,
Come near to your people
In these most difficult of days.
Gift us with what we need for the journey ahead.

Give us humility when certainty tempts us,
Discomfort when we hear justice calling, and
Daring words when silence offers safety.
Give us strength to stand with the crushed,
Hands that restore rather than hurt, and
Hearts unbounded by walls we build around our love.

Hear our lifted voices crying Hosanna this day,
Not as praise - but as desperate plea.
Hosanna, O God.
Save us.
Save us from ourselves.
Save us for each other.
Save us for you.
Save us
For courage,
For truth,
For love that costs.

Save us this holy week
For the life of the world that you love.
Hosanna, O God.
Hosanna!

Amen

Remember you are stardust.