Carol Penner

We come to you
when our imaginations fail.
We cannot imagine
a way for conflict to end.
The bombs or actions set,
the bullets or words fired,
the bodies or relationships
dead on the ground.
Can these bones live?
Is peace even possible?
We don’t think so.
But you are
an impossibility specialist.
A resurrectionist of all
that’s lost and left behind.
We go in the morning
to the tombs to mourn
and we find them empty.
That moment, where we stand
in stunned disbelief,
and see a different future rising
hope bright on the horizon’s edge.
Thanks be to you, God our creator,
our redeemer, and sustainer,
our faithful friend forever.

Forgive the division and animosity
we have fostered
between churches of different kinds.
We’re so sure our little branch is superior:
we look down our noses at a whole tree
teeming with varying practices and beliefs.
We are so convinced of our special place
close to your heart.        
Cast out all casting out,
expel all expellings.
Open channels within us
for your love to flow
in life-giving ways.
Give us dreams of new flowerings
which we do not control:
hosts of vibrant, diverse congregations
multiplying in uncountable ways,
each one a witness to your power,
and not our own.

Forgive us, Creator,
for ignoring all the other days of creation,
zeroing in only on the day
you made us.
We disregard the sacred waters,
hang our heads
and miss the stars in heaven,
and think nothing of the wonders
of night and day.
We miss the botanical masterpieces
in boulevard and hedgerow.
We reduce the creatures of the earth
to those we eat,
and those that bother or entertain us.
Enough of that!
We want to live each day, fully alive,
tuned to the amazing frequencies
of creation around us.
To say, along with you,
“It is good.”

My devotion to prayer
is minute
and measured
in seconds
not hours.
I turn, turn, always turn
to the bright and shiny,
the animated and new
to avoid the hard work
of being me
in your presence.
Forgive my distractibility.
I want to give you
my attention,
and learn what’s needful.

God of grace,
in this season of Lent,
we ask for four gifts.

Courage to admit the harm 
we know we’ve done.

Insight to grasp the harm
we didn’t know we did.

Wisdom to apologize if we can,
and try to make things right.

And, finally, humility.
It is through your love
we are saved.