A Prayer At Seeding Time

Father, we are a church planted in a field.
And though our own fields may be in different places
we are still, in many ways, people connected to the land.

For our food and sustenance, for our daily bread, we give you thanks.
For the strength to work in our fields of service, we give you thanks.
For this place, a gathering place in a field with roots that go down over a hundred years,
we thank you Lord for those who have worked here, before us.

Now oh Lord, we ask that you would again, bless the land.
Bless the seeds and the earth.
Bless the skies and the sun and the rain.
Bless the workers with safety and the wisdom to know,
when enough is enough.
Oh Lord, bless this season.

It is good for us to stop and to remember and to say it out loud,
that our life comes from you Lord, and not from our fields.

So thank you Father, for whatever you’ll do with the work that we’ve done.
We know that without your blessing, we will struggle.
And without seasons of drought, we forget to pray.

So we’ll take what you give, just as you give it,
for you are our father and you only give good gifts.
Though we tremble a bit, because we want what we want,
We choose to entrust this year to you, because of your great love for us.
And so we ask for the Blessing.

Father, Bless this year
Amen


R.F.

I Was Made To Be

I was made to “be”
And out of my being, I do

My doing comes from my being.
It’s when I get that reversed, when my being comes out of my doing, that I get in trouble.

And it takes me a while to return to my be-ing.
And then life is balanced correctly again.

Because I was made to be.

Silence over Sound

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the quiet is the place I find healing, and hope. Strength and resolve.
Yet I don’t find it easy to go to the quiet places.

I crave noise.
Maybe it distracts my mind. Maybe it allows me to not engage with my spirit, yet it engages my mind.

I have a strong mind and it always calls for noise. It engages my attention, so that my attention can go no other place.

Silence over sound. Solitude over silence.
This is the way forward, for me.

Tears have been my food

I am not myself these days.  
Feels like I have trouble finding my footing every morning when I get up out of bed. Finding my equilibrium, my balance, more emotionally than physically but it's all in play. 

Psalm 42 describes my days so very well.

1 As the deer longs for streams of water, 

    so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.
    When can I go and stand before him?

3 Day and night I have only tears for food,
    while my enemies continually taunt me, saying,
    “Where is this God of yours?”

4 My heart is breaking
    as I remember how it used to be:
I walked among the crowds of worshipers,
    leading a great procession to the house of God,
singing for joy and giving thanks
    amid the sound of a great celebration!

5 Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and 6 my God!

Now I am deeply discouraged,
    but I will remember you—
even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
    from the land of Mount Mizar.
7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

8 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.

For the choir director: A psalm of the descendants of Korah.