With Sighs Too Deep for Words

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Rome (ch. 8, v. 26; NRSV), “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” For those who can speak aloud and clearly, there are times, there are things, when and for which we find no words. We have vague or inchoate thoughts and feelings, and we cannot express to another what moves in head and heart. We may not even be able to articulate them within our own soul. Here, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Yet for those who simply and ever cannot speak aloud and clearly, how much more do articulation, expression, communication, fail them? Perhaps they do have the words in head and heart, but they cannot physically voice them. Perhaps, more profoundly, thoughts and feelings lie beyond articulation, even within head and heart. How much more for them, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. So we hope and pray.

Come, Lord, Lowly and Plain

Come, Lord, come; lowly and plain. Dwell with those who live in the dead-ends of cities and towns; in the by-ways of valleys and hills. Be friend and kin where need is great; tender with words and hands in love, in hope. Come, Lord, now; lowly and plain.

For Faith, Hope, and Love to Meet Our Days

Most merciful God, creator and redeemer of all: to a world wracked with pain and loss, you came in Jesus to take our suffering into your heart, there to bear and heal it. Tender your Spirit in our hearts, that we who groan and weep, for ourselves and others, may find faith, hope, and love to meet our days. Now and in the end, wipe away our tears, our sorrows, in life made new and whole, that grief and death will be no more. Amen.

They Are Gone

They are gone, and
I think of them,
long, as prie-dieu
bent to hard wood.

A Voice, A Thin Silence

In the back room the washing machine gurgles and agitates. In the back yard a cardinal chirps and trills. At my desk, in the twilight before dawn, I wait for a voice, a thin silence.

As the Day-World Emerges

Most loving and merciful God, ever desirous to wake and greet us, to take us to that place so true and fair: as the day-world emerges from dark to light, by your grace may we as well, in heart and mind, in body and spirit; thus to know the gladdening hour you charge with splendor and hope, and all things made new and bright. Amen.

Keep Us, Lord, Toward Bethlehem: A Prayer in Advent

On this rough back of time, we plod the days toward Bethlehem. How long, Lord, until we get there? What will we find when we arrive? In the aging of the year, daylight pales and stoops before the cold and dark. And the ride jars and coarsens after so many, many miles. We long for welcome, for kindness, for some sort of rest. Will you be there, Lord? How will we know? A child leads us, but to what and for what? We bear our many wanderings, our fears, and, yes, our fervent hopes. Keep us, Lord, toward Bethlehem, toward a tender dawn and a mercy incarnate. Amen.

That God May Have Mercy

Of late, in daily prayers for certain people deeply occupying my heart, I find I am reduced to asking only that God may have mercy. Such prayer seems woefully indeterminate. Yet, given life as it is and my faith as it is, I can neither imagine nor articulate any other prospect. So this has come to be the substance of prayer for me.

A Prayer for Transformation

Almighty and most merciful God, whose thoughts and ways exceed our own much more than the heavens exceed our fragile world, yet whose tender compassion bends low to hear the sighings and groanings of your creatures; search our hearts that we might know our bondage to sin; transform our hearts that we might own your gracious salvation; move our hearts that we might proclaim your holy deliverance to all people and communities. This we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, one with you and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.

Like Any Other Birth, Like No Other Birth

Like any other birth, like no other birth, a child entered our life: source of great joy, great wonder, to a little huddle of family and a handful of strangers in some fields; while the rest of the world slumbered on in the dark. Wake us, Lord, this cold-numbing night to know the joy and the wonder, the tender mercy of your love made flesh: this radiant Child, dream of our dreams and hope of our hopes. Amen.

A Prayer in Consideration of Change

Almighty God, most merciful Father, changeless beyond all human ken, so stretched and wracked are we by this mortal changefulness, through which we ever die, without which we would never live; come close to us in the rising, dying, rising of each day, as you did once in Jesus; and by your Spirit bear us strongly through the changing of our lives, that tomorrow we may wake in him more surely, see him more clearly, embrace him more truly, in the changes the day shall bring; until that endless, endless day, beyond all change, yet ever new. This we ask in the name of Jesus, one with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For Intimations of Glory

Most strange and yet most intimate, you are God, our God. Bending low to us in your own dear Son, you unsettle us. You dislocate, displace us in this world, and discontent us in our very existence. You make us refugees in life. Our days discomfit; our nights dread. We yearn for rest. We yearn for rest beyond all restlessness. We yearn for home beyond all homelessness. And so, most moving God, we plead your Holy Spirit; we plead your piercing love. We plead for even merest glimpses of that day when wanderings end, that land where hearts repair. Amen.

For Christ-like Love

Most merciful God, you have shown us true love in Jesus Christ. Though he was in the form of divine being, he took the nature of sinful humanity, even the nature of one condemned and outcast by that very humanity. Loving us, who despised and rejected him, he showed us sacrificial and holy love, without limits, without boundaries. Make us new people, most loving God, that we might love without limits, without boundaries; that we might be a neighbor, especially toward those condemned and outcast by a world turned away from love. In the name of Jesus Christ, who is one with you and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

A Prayer for Reading

Creator God, by your eloquent Word you made all things that are. You articulated and suffused them with truth, beauty, and goodness. Then when we, in unutterable perversity, had stopped our hearts and minds to your light and love – that we no longer knew, no longer cared for you, for the world, nor even ourselves – by your passionate Word you erased our sin and authored new life for us and for all creation. Therefore inscribe me, savior God, lost and wayward as I am, into your graceful story, your Word incarnate; and thus in all the pages of this life, let me learn to read well that I may love well. This I pray, in Jesus’ name.

For Light and Beauty

Holy Lord, of brightness ever-rising, in whose light we see light, divide the thick relentless clouds with strong sure strokes of glory, that we, who see but gloom, who know but trackless wilds, may rise from darkest wanderings to plains of boundless light, there to see and know the sure illuminations of your beauty. Amen.