A People With Many Secrets

It seems to be becoming something of a regular thing to post a prayer by Walter Brueggemann in this space on Thursdays, and today is no exception.  As I continue to slowly re-read "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth", the book of his prayers, I regularly find bits that express deep heart cries with clarity that demand their reposting in this space.  And so today I offer you the prayer with the same title as this post, written and read to a Psalms class, on January 14, 1999.

You are the God from whom no secret can be hid,
and we are a people with many secrets,
that we want to tell for the sake of our lives,
that we dare not tell because they are deep and painful.
But they are our secrets...and they count for much;
they are our truth...rooted deep in our lives.
You are the God of all truth,
and now we bid you heed our truth,
about which we will not bear false witness...
The truth of grief unresolved,
the truth of pain unacknowledged,
the truth of fear too child-like,
the truth of hate, as powerful as it is deep,
the truth of being taken advantage of,
and being used,
and manipulated,
and slandered.
We trust the great truth of your wondrous love,
but we will not sit still for it,
UNTIL you hear us.
Our truth - heard by you - will make us free.
So be the God of all truth, even ours,
we pray in the name of Jesus,
who is your best kept secret of hurt.  Amen.

An Advent Prayer

I've still been reading that book of Walter Brueggemann's prayers, and am quite caught by this prayer for the advent season:

The grace and the impatience to wait

In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our finger tips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.

Our True Home

Another prayer from Walter Bruggemann:

Our True Home

God before and God behind,
God for us and God for your own self,
Maker of heaven and earth,
creator of sea and sky,
governor of day and night.
We give thanks for your ordered gift of life to us,
for the rhythms that reassure,
for the equilibriums that sustain,
for the reliabilities that curb our anxieties.
We treasure from you,
days to work and nights to rest.
We cherish from you,
days to control and nights to dream.
We savor from you,
days to plan and nights to dream.
Be our day and our night,
our heaven and our earth,
our sea and our sky,
and in the end our true home. Amen.
(Old Testament theology class /November 12, 1998)

Stunned by the Morning

I have another prayer of Walter Bruggemann to share with you today.

Stunned by the Morning

The night of defeat is long and still and unbearable.
We know the nights.
And our sisters and brothers
who are cold,
and hungry,
and brutalized know them better than do we.
And you also know the night in Ashdod and in a trillion other times.
How it is with you in the night we do not know.
Perhaps it is like it is with us.
We, with the Philistines, are stunned by the morning.
stunned to find our pet projects toppled.
stunned to find our favorite gods failed.
stunned to find our managed hopes defeated.
Then you in the morning.
You only.
You in splendor.
You in glory.
You in power.
This day we dazzle at your glory in the midst of our long night.
Move in your glory this day in the midst of our many nights.
Bring us to your day.
To your new day.
Your third day. Amen.
(written on Reading 1 Samuel 5 /March 2, 2000)

No Newness Yet

I've been revisiting an absolutely beautiful book of prayers written by Walter Bruggemann lately, and have found myself moved again by his words and driven to share some of these prayers with you. Each prayer in the book was written for an occasion (such as a class lecture - he opened classes with these beautifully written prayers).  This particular prayer caught my attention in a week where I'm celebrating an anniversary of healing, but also conscious of all the places in my own life, and in the world that still cry out for healing.  Bruggemann wrote this prayer for a class on the Psalms that he taught, and the prayer is dated January 21, 1999.

No Newness Yet

You are the God who makes all things new.
We gladly raise our voices and move our lips
to acknowledge, celebrate, and proclaim
your staggering newness.
As we do so, we hold in our hearts
deep awareness of all the places where your newness
is not visible, and
has not come.
Our hearts link to many places of wretchedness
short of your newness.
We picture our folks at home,
sick, in pain, disabled, paralyzed
(we name Frank).
and no newness yet.
We know up close the deep wretchedness
of poverty, of homelessness, of hunger
and no newness yet.
Move our hearts closer to the passion of our lips.
Move our lips closer to your own newness.
Work your newness in hidden, cunning ways among us.
Move us closer to your bodied newness in Jesus,
newness of strength come in weakness,
newness of wisdom come in foolishness.
Draw us from the wretchedness we know
to his scarred, bloody wretchedness
that is your odd entry into our life.
We pray in the sane of his suffering newness. Amen.

There is a time to be born, and it is now

This prayer, from "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth" by Walter Bruggemann seems appropriate for today, the last day of Advent.

~~~

There is a time to be born and a time to die.
And this is a time to be born.
So we turn to you, God of our life,
God of all our years,
God of our beginning.
Our times are in your hands.
Hear us as we pray:
For those of us too much into obedience,
birth us to the freedom of the gospel.
For those of us too much into self-indulgence,
birth us to discipleship in your ministry.
For those of us too much into cynicism,
birth us to the innocence of the Christ child.
For those of us too much into cowardice,
birth us to the courage to stand before
principalities and powers.
For those of us too much into guild,
birth us into forgiveness worked in your generosity.
For those of us too much into despair,
birth us into the promises you make to your people.
For those of us too much into control,
birth us into the the vulnerability of the cross.
For those of us too much into victimization,
birth us into the power of Easter.
For those of us too much into fatigue,
birth us into the energy of Pentecost.
We dare pray that you will do for us and among us and through us
what is needful for newness.
Give us the power to be receptive,
to take the newness you give,
to move from womb warmth to real life.
We make this prayer not only for ourselves, but
for our school at the brink of birth,
for the church at the edge of life,
for our city waiting for newness,
for your whole creation, with which ye yearn
in eager longing.
There is a time to be born, and it is now.
We sense the pangs and groans of your newness.
Come here now in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The God Who Yearns and Waits for Us

I've been pondering Romans 8 quite deeply again lately, and had to smile when, the other night, as I turned to the next prayer in Walter Bruggemann's wonderful "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth" it contained lines also drawn from that passage. The prayer, titled the same as this post, read:

We are strange conundrums of faithfulness and fickleness.
We cleave to you in all the ways that we are abled.
We count on you and intend our lives to be lived for you,
and then we find ourselves among your people
who are always seeking elsewhere and otherwise.
So we give thanks that you are the God
who yearns and waits for us,
and that our connection to you is always from your side,
and that it is because of your goodness
that neither life nor death
nor angels nor principalities
nor heights nor depths
nor anything in creation
can separate us from you.
We give you thanks for your faithfulness,
so much more durable than ours. Amen.

(Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, pg. 135)

Daily 5 - Day 112

Today's Daily "5":

1. A full (or nearly full, not quite certain) moon peeking at me as I drove through the dark, to and from work, bookending the day and stirring emotions
2. Romans 8
3. Philippians 1
4. Realizing that in working on memorizing portions of scripture I'm hearing them so many times that my heart cannot help but meditate on them, and begin to hear God speaking clearly within them to the things I'm pondering or wrestling with
5. Frittata for dinner - and not having to cook
6. Getting the last renewal for the year out the door at work
7. the prayers of Walter Bruggemann in "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth"
8. enjoying the writing on some of my favorite blogs
9. clean water. I love drinking water. I think I forget sometimes to be grateful to live in a place with fresh and drinkable water. A place where the water from the tap is perfectly fine and won't make me sick.
10. peanut m&m's - a handful or two a day really is making me smile lately.
    

Come to Our Shut Down Places

I have loved, for a time now, the story of Hannah. There are so many secrets wonders in that story, the first chapters or so of 1 Samuel, that Jesus has whispered to me.

Just now, on a day that has been hard and full of tears as I faced some realities about myself again, after a week that began in this impossibly deep space, and carried through many incredibly challenging moments of life and prayer, I read another prayer by Walter Bruggemann. A prayer that the book says he wrote after reading 1 Samuel 1. And somehow, this prayer is touching raw spots in my soul, and soothing just a little.

Come to Our Shut Down Places

It does not come easy to us to imagine that you
closed the womb of mother Hannah
and thereby foreclosed the future for a time.
And yet, we can name in your presence
a myriad of shut down places around us...
those shut down in poverty and despair,
those shut down in fear and in rage,
those shut down by abuse and violence,
too hurt to speak,
too frightened to appear,
too scarred to dance.
And closer, our own shut downs:
in anxiety, in resentment, in pretense,
too weary to care,
too greedy to share,
too much of us for neighbor.
Those are not all your doing, we confess.
But you are the God who opens all shut downs:
by your power, you give futures,
by your goodness, you give hope,
by your mercy, you make new.
So we bid you this day come to our shut down places
and give birth anew.
We pray through the Easter opening of the Friday shut downs.
Amen

~~~

I thankful that Jesus is a God who comes to the shut-down places. Because today, I need that. And today, I'm praying for that for so many I love. For birth anew, in the shut down places. For resurrections promises in moments that feel like Friday burials of all hope and joy.

Not quite sure...

I am trying to rest.

Stillness is hard.

My body physically refused to allow me to clean and putter tonight. I got home from work and a few after work errands, and collapsed. Thankfully, my roommate had made dinner. I ate, showered, and then, as my roommate put it "blobbed out" on first my bed, and then the couch.

My heart shies away from being still right now. I think I'm a bit afraid of what further depths of Jesus could mean. And yet, I long for Him...

Actually, my heart literally feels skittish, like it's skirting around the edges, but unwilling to draw near.

I woke at a very specific hour in the middle of the night (one of many times I woke through the night, but this one stood out) and found myself having thoughts of regret. Regret that I'd made a particular vow to Jesus. Regret that I needed to continue to live that vow out. The lines from the Bruggemann prayer I posted earlier today came back, as I considered what it was to once again discover the "hard deep obedience".

so, I'm again trying to find ways to choose life in the midst of this exhaustion... to find joy...

A Hard Deep Call to Obedience

I read this prayer by Walter Bruggemann just before I fell asleep last night, and felt the truth of it hitting my soul deeply as I prayed it back to Jesus...

You are the God who makes extravagant promises.
We relish your great promises
of fidelity
and presence
and solidarity,
and we exude in them.
Only to find out, always too late,
that your promise always comes
in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.
You are the God who calls people like us,
and the long list of mothers and fathers before us,
who trusted the promise enough to keep the call.
So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,
who calls always to dangerous new places.
We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us
that we may be among those
who believe your promises enough
to respond to your call.
We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.

Not the God we would have chosen

Another prayer from Bruggemann's "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth":

We would as soon you were stable and reliable.
We would as soon you were predictable
and always the same toward us.
We would like to take the hammer of doctrine
and take the nails of piety
and nail your feet to the floor
and have you stay in one place.
And then we find you moving,
always surprising us,
always coming at us from new directions.
Always planting us
and uprooting us
and tearing all things down
and making all things new.
You are not the God we would have chosen
had we done the choosing,
but we are your people
and you have chosen us in freedom.
We pray for the great gift of freedom
that we may be free toward you
as you are in your world.
Give us that gift of freedom
that we may move in new places
in obedience and in gratitude.
Thank you for Jesus
who embodied your freedom for all of us. Amen.

How it is when we praise you...

From another prayer by Walter Bruggemann...

That is how it is when we praise you. We join the angels in praise, and we keep our feet in time and place... awed to heaven, rooted in earth. We are daily stretched between communion with you and our bodied lives, spent but alive, summoned and cherished but stretched between. And we are reminded that before us there has been this One truly divine (at ease with the angels) truly human...dwellers in time and space. We are thankful for him, and glad to be in his missional company. Alleluia. Amen.

(Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, pg. 86)

We are children of another world

I'm still slowly making my way through a book of prayers by Walter Bruggemann, and was deeply struck as I read this one this morning:

For the mystery of the text,
and for the history of eyes to see
and ears to hear the text,
we give you thanks.

Our eyes are scaled
and our ears are uncircumsised
and we are children of another world.

We pray for the gift of perception.
We pray for energy and courage,
that we may not leave the text
until we wrench your blessing from it.

Amen.