An Advent Prayer of Joy

Psalm 126

A song of ascents. 

¹ When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,  

we were like those who dreamed.² Our mouths were filled with laughter,
   our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
   “The LORD has done great things for them.”
³ The LORD has done great things for us,
   and we are filled with joy.
 ⁴ Restore our fortunes, LORD,
   like streams in the Negev.
⁵ Those who sow with tears
   will reap with songs of joy.
⁶ Those who go out weeping,
   carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
   carrying sheaves with them.

Dear God,

May this morning bring us assurance of the eternal joy we have in you.  In the midst of this advent season, among all of the displays of our world we’re given a message of joy.  Bright colors and catchy songs pervade our lives and tell us we should be happy.  Yet even the coming of Christmas doesn’t end our worries in this world.  We lift our troubles before you this morning God because as much as we try to hide our suffering behind polite smiles we need you in our lives and in our world.  We pray for the day when polite smiles aren’t needed and we beam with a joy that comes from restoration. 

Be with us God as we mourn the losses in our lives.  In this season we cherish our time with loved ones, but the absence of some grows even larger in our hearts.  As we deal with physical struggles we ask for comfort.  When our bodies break down, we pray even more that you rest in our soul and give us peace.  Politics and economics bring spirit crushing anxiety when governed by the rules of the world.  We pray that you help us to practice God’s politics and live in a heavenly economy that brings life and light into our lives and the world.

Fill our mouths with laughter, fill our tongues with song, for the Lord has done great things for us.  We need look no further than our hands can reach from left to right to find proof of your faithfulness to us.  We thank you for the life-giving relationships in our lives.  Through good and bad we thank you for our friends and family.  We curse the traffic and hate the crowds this time of year, but help us to notice the friendly smiles, the people who hold a door for us or offer their spot in line.  Right after you made us you said it was good, let us remember that and hope for the day when humanity will be restored in all of the goodness in which you created us.

Until that day God may we seek your will and strive to live out all of the goodness that is in us through the grace and goodwill of your Son, Jesus.  In all of our troubles remind us that God is with us.  As we prepare ourselves for Christmas and remember the birth of Christ, help us to draw strength from the knowledge that just as you entered the world through a baby to draw us close to you, that we may continue to allow Christ into this world through us.  You have done great things for us Lord, and we are filled with joy.  Amen.

A Prayer of Rest and Forgiveness

Dear God,

We come to you in thanksgiving. May our hearts and minds rest in you. We thank you for stillness. As we sit in your space give our bodies rest from a week of work, school, and play.  Clear our minds of all the clutter we've filled them with this week.  Help us to give away all of our thoughts that we may think only of you.  We pride ourselves on our independence and how well we take care of ourselves, this might not be all bad, but relieve us of that pressure so that we may rely wholly on you.

Thank you for taking care of us even when we don't recognize it.  Help us to see you for all that you are to us.  More than a good idea, more than a set of values, you are the God who created us and longs to draw us close.

Forgive us for the space we create between you and ourselves.  Forgive us for ignoring you because we're so content with the way things are.  Forgive us for the hurt we cause each other because we're so wrapped up in ourselves.  Forgive us for misrepresenting you and causing others to doubt you.  Forgive us for our overconsumption.  Forgive us for turning negative when things don't go our way.

We know that you are with us, may we remember this and let it drive our words, thoughts, and deeds, daily.  We preay for our world, that we could truly find peace and understand how living together should work.  We pray for our country, that we could make wise decisions with civility.  And we pray for our church, that we would bring your light into this world, reflecting the glory of the God whom we serve.

Break our hearts for the things that break yours God and give us a submissive spirit that we might be shaped into the men and women that you have intended for us to be.  We ask all of this in name of our Savior who taught us to pray, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And, forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.  Forever, Amen.

Really Pat?

You may have heard the news about Pat Robertson's latest offensive comments.  This time it didn't target gays or foreigners, but the diseased.  In a recent television appearance, Robertson replied to a caller asking about how he should adivise a friend who had decided to see another woman because of his wife's advanced Alzheimer's. 

I grew up fundamentalist, so I think I know the answer here.  Tell the friend to stop, ask forgiveness, and love on his wife until death.  From birth to seventeen years old, I attended a good old King James, Bible Believing, Independent Baptist Church, three times a week, every week.  That makes over 2500 sermons before I even became an adult, and most of them had something to say about sex, drugs, and/or rock and roll.  Don't take me the wrong way, the people of that church showed love and care with their actions, but the message out of their mouths came clear.  Adultery and Divorce are wrong.

I've never been a big fan of Robertson, but I thought he would at least get this one right.  But no, he said "I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her."  He admits that marriage is until "death" but then says that Alzheimer's is like a living death.  So that makes it ok I guess.

This is so wrong, and the reason why I believe Christians (yes, I am one) need to understand the source behind their convictions.  For starters, our nation is great, and I love family, but let's be clear.  I believe in a man, who I also believe was a God (the God even).  That this God-man lived on this earth and suffered death at the hands of his creation.  Miraculously, he didn't stay dead.  He returned to this earth until ascending into heaven.  If you're not a Christian, that sounds foolish.  If you are, it probably doesn't sound foolish enough.  If you really believe that (and I do) its a pretty big deal.  Bigger than a pledge or blood relationships, or all of the legalistic morass we let ourselves get bound up in.

Let's look to some reason.  If said wife has "lost her mind", we might conclude that she is no longer "like the living", therefore a covenant relationship like marriage may be voided on those grounds.  She is less than human, not deserving the same right to expect faithfulness from her husband as one who possesses full mental health.  If that's the case, then how can you argue that a fetus in the womb possesses full life that can't be violated.  Is the potential of life more valuable that the fulfillment of life embodied in its final journey to death?  Does the fetus deserve any more the right to birth than a person deserves the right to maintain full dignity and humanity even unto death?

Too much self-serving logic going on here.  Of what value is life?  Can we argue over it's beginning at conception or birth while we sit idly by watching execution take place?  How did a discussion of Alzheimer's take us to capital punishment?  Shane Claiborne wrote just today a defense of Grace in the face of death.  Should we dismiss the Psalms and get self-righteous over the fact that King David, guilty of murder, should have never been allowed to live long enough to write them?  Should the bulk of the New Testament be rejected because the writer, Paul, would have willingly accepted the penalty for his crimes if his conversion had been true?

We need to think!  Humanity, infused with the very breath of God is exceedingly deep, but we flippantly decide who is deserving and who doesn't have the privilege to the rights of that humanity.  We are too ready to set our minds firm on issues of abortion, death, the right to life, and dying with dignity when these issues deserve deep and mindful consideration and soul-searching. 

But unfortunately for many, it's just a whole lot easier to find out what Pat thinks about it.

A Prayer for Sunday, September 11, 2011

Dear God,

When words fail to meet our need to express our desires for you we are grateful that you know us even better than we know ourselves.  When we can’t even know what we should be asking from you we are thankful that you have known what we need even before we were born.  We come to this place today to connect with you.  Bless us with the knowledge that you are in this place, that you are with us.  May our worship be pleasing to you.

We come today with an acute mindfulness of this date, ten years past the day our world changed before our eyes.  Even today we try to make sense of what happened and our reactions to that day, both collectively and individually have yet to find an end.  Help our children to understand the significance of what they can’t remember, to know that comfort and safety are gifts to show gratitude for and not to be taken for granted.  As we pray and hope for comfort and safety for our children, we also recognize the value of struggle; as we struggle in this world may we do so together, walking step by step with you.

May you lead us to forgiveness God.  We may never know how much debt we owe to you.  The trials you’ve led us through in this life that we’ve failed to attribute to your hand or the trials to come in eternity that according to your promise you have overcome.  As we pray for our children we offer the same prayer for ourselves.  Your grace has brought us safe thus far, may we understand the significance of what we can’t remember, to know that your sacrifice in the body of Jesus has brought us from a living death into eternal life.  With this measure of forgiveness let us know that nothing is unforgiveable to us, the children of God.

You are a God of beauty, of restoration, of making good out of ugly things.  We reflect today on the ugliness of September 11 and pray that through your spirit we can turn this tragedy into a victory of love over hate, peace over war, sacrifice over selfishness, humanity over evil.  You have given no less to us, from us no less is expected.

We want this God, to walk in the light of forgiveness and mercy, but we know that it can’t be done from our own strength and will.  May we follow your will on this path.

Amen.

More Memories

After the last post about memory and songs, it seems that every time I turn on the radio I hear something that takes me back.  Not the songs that you hear everyday, but the ones that seem to happen randomly and take you back to those moments that reside in the back of your brain.  The memories that you've filed away and might never recall again until something happens to trigger it.

Here in Charlottesville, the UVa students moved in just a week or so ago.  After reading several facebook posts from residents complaining about the traffic the students brought to town I got in the car for a quick trip to the supermarket.  What did I hear but "Here's Where the Story Ends" by the Sundays.  That song was an anthem for my last summer at home before leaving for college myself.

I worked at KFC that summer.  The worst job I ever had.  My parents had lobbied for me to return to the factory, but I insisted on something different. (Parents 1- Me 0; they were right)  There was an assistant manager at the store.  She was 35-40 years old, mother of a few, former husband in jail, and on top of it, I didn't find her attractive.  I was only seventeen.  I'll spare the details, but she started behaving rather inappropriately toward me and I was scared.

On my last night at work, I showed up over an hour late.  A friend of mine had already quit, and skipped out completely on his last scheduled shift.  This manager's shift ended as mine began that day.  I couldn't bring myself to just cut out, but I thought after a half hour or so she would think that I had decided to skip out like my friend.  She didn't.  She waited up to see me.  I went back into the kitchen and wouldn't come out, and she wasn't allowed back since she wasn't working.  At the end of my shift she was waiting in the parking lot.

I got into my car and cranked it while she stood in the door trying to talk.  I didn't hear a word of what she said, but the tape playing in my car would leave a memory etched into my brain that remains to this day.  "It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year."  I finally pulled out of the parking lot leaving that job and everything about it behind.

Several weeks later I remember sitting in my new dorm.  I'd brought the tape with me and played it in the room as my roommate arrived.  We made small talk, but the interaction was awkward.  I'd just bought a fan that I needed to assemble, so that occupied my hands and gave me something to do.  When the track played on the tape, I remembered just how awful my last summer at home had been.  I sat on the edge of my bed and looked across the room at this new face listening to the words "Here's Where the Story Ends." and I new that every chapter of our lives can be closed with those words, but the story really never ends.  It becomes a part of our life and prepares us to create new stories that we will take with us forever.

Memories and Melodies

Ever notice how strong of a connection certain songs make to episodes of your life?  Last week I heard "Veronica" by Elvis Costello on the radio.  I either haven't heard that song in a long time, or just haven't noticed, but this time it evoked a flood of memories.

The summer after my sixteenth birthday my parents expected me to get my first job.  They always agreed that I wouldn't have to work during the school year if I could find full-time employment during the summer that paid a decent wage.  Growing up in Bassett, Virginia, the easiest option was the factory.

At the time, Bassett was home to at least five furniture factories.  My mother's three brothers, my father, brother-in-law, and nearly every other male I could think of in my family worked in the furniture business.  Factories were wide and tall brick buildings with smokestacks and tiny windows hiding most of what went on inside.  The only clues about what happened in a factory came promptly at noon and three-thirty every weekday, shortly after the horn that was heard across the entire town.  Worn, tired, and dirty men and women would rush out of the buildings, their demeanor and appearance making it clear that whatever went on in a factory, I didn't want any part of it.

School started at 8:20, so getting ready to punch the clock at 7:00 on my first day of work was no small task.  I worked in the same building as my father, but we didn't ride together.  His routine involved getting to work early enough to read for a while in his car, gather briefly with friends in the break room, and punch the clock at 6:55 to make sure he wasn't late.  (Punching in earlier meant you'd have to be paid for the time and the company didn't allow that.  Punching in later than 7:00 meant your time would be docked and my father wouldn't allow that.)

I intended to roll into the parking lot, exit my car, proceed straight to the time clock and punch in when the horn sounded official Bassett time-- 7:00.  Riding to work that morning, "Veronica" played on the radio.  The lyrics have nothing to do with the memory, but I found it catchy enough to stick in my brain for the summer.

The tasks required on the assembly line were mind-numbingly monotonous.  I couldn't help but sing "Veronica" over and over.  My brain was empty and idle within minutes of my first day of work.  Gluing the same wooden block into piece after piece of furniture.  Screwing identical blocks into identical dressers for hours at a time.  Standing in the same spot, rotating at the hip to retrieve drawers from a stack to shove them into the moving dressers until the entire line had run.  I knew that I wasn't going to like the job and I didn't.

So why does this song that reminds me of working in a drab, dark factory in my youth?  That experience of several summers taught me so many life lessons.  I worked with people whose lives were stuck in a dead end.  I learned the value of persistence and hard work to pull out of the holes you find yourself in.  I also learned to love the people who were stuck.  The people who no one ever saw behind the brick and mortar, working like bees every day to produce.  I learned what it was like to work for the sole reason of earning a paycheck and knew that working for money alone could never lead to fulfillment in life.

Most of all, I learned to appreciate my father.  I think he worked for Bassett nearly 50 years.  I loved working in the same building as him and watching the respect he'd earned.  On paydays, I heard so many people complain about how little they made in one breath while talking about how much they'd spent on alcohol in the next breath.  I never knew how he managed to keep his mind and body fresh, but somehow he found a sense of pride in a job well done and created life-giving relationships with co-workers.  He retired on the day that I finally finished college.  He'd never even made it to high school.

I worked in a factory for three summers and hated every minute of it.  My father endured what I could not for one reason alone: a loving commitment to family.  I would have never understood the depth of this commitment if I hadn't experienced it myself.  So while I hated every minute, I wouldn't give back a single second.  It's why I smile when I hear "Veronica" today.

I've been absent from A Pot of Stew for over a month now.  Mostly because I've spent so much time travelling this summer, but I've also been doing some other writing.  I've been working on a few articles, of course I've written a few posts at The Teaching Underground.  I've also been working on a novel.  No idea where that will go, but I'll let you know if it gets off the ground.