Praying With Walter Brueggemann

Christ in Silence by Odilon Redon 1890

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And Then You

 
We arranged our lives as best we can,
to keep your holiness at bay,
with our pieties,
our doctrines,
our liturgies,
our moralities,
our secret ideologies,
Safe, virtuous, settled.

 
And then you -

you and your dreams,
you and your visions,
you and your purposes,
you and your commands,
you and our neighbours,

We find your holiness not at bay,
but probing, pervading,
insisting, demanding.

And we yield, sometimes gladly,
sometimes resentfully,
sometimes late… or soon.

We yield because you, beyond us, are our God,
We are your creatures met by your your holiness,
by your holiness made our true selves.
And we yield. 

                                                                             Amen.

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 The Other Side Of The Street

Just when we imagine that we have you figured out
you show up working the other side of the street
in your frightening freedom.

You meet us behind and before
as promise and as threat,
and we are overmatched whenever we sit to deal with you.

So we bid you to pay less vigorous attention to us
and we bid you to give us the freedom and courage
that we may withstand you
in ways that are proper to you and to us.

We pray in the name of the utterly humble One
whom you therefore exalted.

Give us wisdom and freedom
that we may sense the ways in which we may best live in this world
where the last become first and the first become last. 

Amen. 

From Awed To Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

And just for fun....The Sunny Side Of The Street
Tommy Dorsey