With all the graciousness we can muster

Christian Century, Jan 25, 2003

With all the graciousness we can muster

   God of our times, our years, our days.
   You are the God of our work,
   of our rest,
   of our weariness.

   Our times are in your hands. We come to you now
   in our strength and in our weakness,
   in our hope and in our despair,
   in our buoyancy and in our disease.

   We come to pray for ourselves and for all like us
   who seek and yearn for life anew with you and from you
   and for you.

   We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us in our
   greed.
   We are among those who want more,
   more money, more power, more piety, more sex,
   more influence, more doctrine, more notice, more
   members.
   more students, more morality, more learning, more shoes.
   Be for us enough and more than enough,
   for we know about your self-giving generosity.

   We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us in our
   disconsolation.
   We are not far removed from those who must
   without love, without home, without hope,
   without job, without health care.
   We are close enough to vision those who must
   check discarded butts to see if there is one more puff,
   who must rummage and scavenge for food,
   for their hungers are close to ours.
   Be among us the God who fills the hungry with good things,
   and sends the rich away empty.

   We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us who are
   genuinely good people,
   who meditate on your Torah day and night,
   who are propelled by and for your best causes,
   who are on the right side of every issue,
   who wear ourselves out in obedience to you,
   and sometimes wear others out with our good intentions.
   Be among us ultimate enough to make our passions
   penultimate.
   valid but less than crucial.

   We are your people. We wait for you to be more visibly and palpably
   our God.

   So we pray with our mothers and Fathers, "Come, Lord Jesus."
   We wait for your coming with all the graciousness we can muster.
   Amen.

   Prayer in Chapel, January 27, 1998

Excerpted from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, by Walter Brueggemann.