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Many things can cause us to shut down, pain, anger, grief, fatigue.  And yet shutting down is never the solution for us.  You are a God who engages with us and who calls us to engage with the lives you have for us.  You are also the God who specializes in reviving and resurrecting things that seem lifeless.  So today, through the words of Walter Brueggemann, we pray for you to:

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 neighbour.
These 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.

(Poem from: Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, Edited by Edwin Searcy, Fortress Press Minneapolis 2003. page 119.)

May God’s blessing be upon you today,
Dianne

 

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