Processing with God: Narrative Lectionary, Liturgy, Prayers
Prayer for Canceling Christmas (again) Prayer
This is a prayer For all those in the middle Of canceling Christmas
Because everyone is sick Or the storm is raging-Mr. Freeze Miser or Elsa is Raging Or the Hell has frozen over, and the weather is downright Disrespectful
This is a prayer, for the pastors boards and and councils who have to figure out If they are videoing, scrounging or just calling the whole thing off After years of hoping to finally be in the warmth of one another’s company again
We thought it would be Hallelujah chorus again And we were looking forward to lighting the Christ candle again And were happily scrapping and squabbling about service on Christmas day When…it came to this…!
And even though, Pastoral Leadership Promises That Christ will come anyway (every time) This year is bitterly Hard So I will not say these words to you
So I’m going to pray And validate every curse word Every Sigh Every Grunt Every Frustration Every Headache And remind you that Yelling at God is an Option
And the the “wise men” got lost Joseph had no idea what he was doing Elizabeth and Zechariah were clueless The Shepherds were fairly uninvited and pretty much no one knew what was going on but Mary
Prayers friends…I hope you get some support this Christmas Some affirmation And some kind of God moment in the mess Because, truly is what Christmas is all about, Amen
Feel free to share/adapt/use these words as they are helpful. Please give credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ.
She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible.
"Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal.
Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.
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