Tag: prayer

No Excuses God

What kind of God are you, if you can’t handle my bad days God?

I am so glad that I can safely tell yell to you and at you and know that I am still beloved.

I am glad that you sit with me on my pain and loneliness and tell me it’s ok to be lonely.

I’m glad that you have made sacred the screaming Psalms of pain. We don’t need a reason or excuses, because you are a no excuses God.

I am sad by the people who feel they have to hide their pain, their anger, their frailities from God.

I am deeply wounded that time and again we humans hurt each other and ourselves in pursuit of impossible purity and perfection.

I rage with the anger of a thousand suns when bad behavior is blamed on other people, mental illness or “having a bad day.”

I am mystified, but not really, when young black women, disabled individuals, immigrants and Black People are beaten or killed during arrest but racist white cis mass murders are restrained unharmed.

When are we White people going to start flipping the tables on racism?

No excuses.

When will our pain convict us enough to chop down the tree of racism, condemning it—Strange fruit and all—to the fire?

Lord, I’m so glad you are the God that denounces evil. Help us to denounce evil!

Help us to let go of our whining and excuses.

Give us the fortitude to stop trimming the tree of racism here and there, willy-nilly—and instead go for the roots: the racial fetishes, the micro aggressions, the stereotyping. God let us no longer let the stereotyping, the jokes, the devaluing of non white people to continue. Help us to STOP it.

Rotten Tree Stump The Tree Was Cut Down And Revealed Its, Rotten Tree Stump - Albert

God I’m glad I can tell and scream these things when I have a bad day.

RACISM KILLS! WE ARE STILL TANGLED AND COMPLICIT!

And I’m glad you are a God who says to carry the cross, to love my neighbor, turn the other cheek. All to illustrate that you do NOT condone abuse, violence or murder; no matter how we try to rationalize it.

You are a No excuses God! Thank God!

God we’ve had a bad day. Help us to decide that we never want a day like this to happen again. Help us to flip the tables of injustice and to root out evil.

You hold out forgiveness to love us all the way back to how and why we should treat one another humanely.

God hear our cry, help us to break out of our systems of White Supremacy we pray.

Amen

White Work: a Prayer after (continued) Racist Violence for the Asian Community

God teach me how to take the target off of my Asian neighbor’s back.

I am torn by grief that the stereotypes and the racial violence continues.

God help me to fight against the idea of a model minority.

Help me to interrupt, to disrupt, to work against any and all micro-aggressions. Strengthen my resolve and spark my curiosity so I never stop learning about how they creep into my perception of the world.

Do not let any of us call a horrific pandemic the China or Kung Fu virus. For it is racist and wrong. It is evil, let us denounce it as so.

Help me to confront, and not dwell in shame or embarrassment, so I can address when I participate–in the Asians are smart-compliant-good-at-math-“Asian”-stereotypes.

And be with those communities that have received injuries or death in the United States. Help those who are Asian–whichever of the more than a dozen countries that means–find community and connection. Help those who are citizens and those who are not to get the help they need I pray.

Give them sanctuary.

Help us to be more of a sanctuary. Help us not to proclaim ourselves as “safe” but instead teach us how to actually be and enact safety and hospitality.

God I know there’s a target on my Asian neighbor’s back and it makes me want to weep and rage. Teach me how to stop this targeting, I pray.

Show me how each individual is uniquely and beautifully made in your image.

And help me to do the White work I need to do.

In the name of Jesus Christ I pray.

Amen.

Please feel free to use/share credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

The Kingdom of Heaven Prayer

God, my heart is so happy whenever I hear or see that anyone has received the vaccine. It makes me want to throw a party.

So God, today the kingdom of heaven looks like everyone being vaccinated and going to a party.

No one is too early and no one is too late to join the party.

We are all dressed like we want God, to the nines or comfortably.

No one is jealous or pushing in line, no one is worried that there is not enough food or glamour or belovedness to go around.

Every single person is called by their name and preferred pronouns are used without a misstep or a blink of surprise.

God, today the kingdom of heaven looks like Spring with kids playing freely, unbothered but the stresses of the pandemic.

Homes are warm and dry and safe and accessible; everyone has one to go to and no one is afraid to go home.

People are supported: their status is not defined by their age or gender or class or marital status. Every person is celebrated.

People’s traditions and roots and experiences are valued and validated. Science is no longer, ever, seen to be in conflict with faithfulness.

And Faith is in the room. Faith that word which is almost never used to refer to a singular person’s set of beliefs, but instead is a word that honors the system of the community that glues them together through ritual and hope. Faith is abundant.

God, your kingdom come, your will be done. I pray now and forever.

Amen.

Feel Free to Use/Adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Ashes to Ashes: a Prayer

God, I’ve been living with ashes in my mouth for over a year now.

And though they are bitter and continue to color every single aspect of my day,

I find that I cannot spit them out. For you have put them there, Lord

Living with death is hard–it’s why family parlors became living rooms

It’s why death was exported from homes and churches to funeral homes

Because it’s tough to see just how fragile humanity is.

Is this like white fragility and male fragility? This mortality thing? Do we ignore it because we, mistakenly, think it makes us stronger?

And then in comes the Christ: an openly weeping male, here comes Christ who sits with the sick and the weak and the disabled and the young and the dying.

Here comes Christ, with dust in his hair and dust on his feet, and ashes in his mouth. Tasting his death for all three years of his ministry.

A taste, he too can’t spit out. A taste that when he tries to draw attention to it, or share it with his disciples, it is rejected.

How did it feel, Jesus, when Mary took a moment to sit with you in the dust, and to wash as much as it as she could off, and then to wipe it clean with her own hair? Mary–whose own brother had died–Mary was the one who was able to sit with you in the dust.

How did it taste, Lord? To drink the wine and eat the bread of resurrection, while the taste of ashes was probably at its’ strongest? Did Peter taste it? Or James or John? Did Matthew and Mark feel the grains upon their tongue? Was Luke aware of its dusty origin? Did Judas recognize the taste of death upon his tongue?

And that night in the garden, when the sand of sleep overpowered the disciples, did you feel the dust in the corner of your eyes? Did you wipe it away, or had you learned to live with it by then?

God, I’ve been living with ashes in my mouth all year, and we are going to enter the season of death, of ashes, of the dirty, dusty path to Jerusalem. And so I pray, that I learn to live and learn how to learn a little more from my own mortality.

I pray that some of the taste of ash is eased with the taste of the living waters of baptism and resurrection.

I’m tired of living with ashes on my tongue, God.

But here we are.

Help me to taste the truth and good news even among the ashes, I pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Art by Beatrice Stenta

More Lenten Resources

Prayer for the Cold

God, my heat was out today, and my Northern teeth chattered in 50 degree heat and my hands and feet started to ache with the cold.

Please be with all those experiencing the storm.

Prayers for the powerless

the homeless

the cold

Source of Life, give resources to all those who need them today. Help them to find ways to eat and hibernate. Help them to figure out how to move or stay safely.

As our vortex becomes more and more polar in nature, help us we pray.

God help those of us who don’t have the infrastructure, personally or fiscally or civically, to withstand the cold.

Help us and our neighbors neighbors to reach out, let any and all warmth be shared and may we be able to safely depend upon one another.

Source of Life: help all of us who need to, to be able to weather the storm we pray. In the name of the encouraging, creative and loving Holy Spirit we pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Life in Slow Motion: Lenten Prayer

God, I feel like everything is in slow motion. I can see what is coming, all of it, but it’s hard to react in a timely manner.

The bicycle of life is barely moving, and when we hit a bump. It hits hard.

When I drop the paper or burn my hand or yell at my child, it seems insurmountable.

Because, I’m going to be honest God, I didn’t have all that much momentum to begin with–I am so reliant on the treat of the day: the good meal, the sunlight, the 20 minutes to do nothing.

And, executive function is hard to get functional. And the tea caffeine can only do so much.

And God, I’m not ready for Lent, because I’ve been trudging through Lent all year. Living with death, remembering my mortality, feeling alone. God I’m don’t wanna.

I don’t want to do Lent.

But here we are, ready for the desert, for the trudge, for the bumps. Here we are ready to celebrate life and death, once again, with you.

With you.

God, this is a prayer from the longest and slowest Lent ever. Help me not to freeze or burn out. Help me to stay compassionate and caring. Send your Holy Spirit, because we here on Earth need it.

And I know we cannot just skip to Easter God.

So, I’m praying you send us what we need, even as we find ourselves in slow motion.

Amen.

More Pandemic Prayers

Pandemic Mourning

God, I don’t have enough tears for 400,000. If I cried for forty days and forty nights, it wouldn’t be enough.

So instead I’ll light the candle–and watch the flame gasping for breath.

And when I blow it out, I’ll bathe my face in the smoke. I taste ashes on my tongue.

Grief is never enough. The lives cut short, every single one of them, is a tragedy.

Anger rises, and I let it wash and let it go, because this anger is sadness in disguise.

I breathe in, and out, and feel the prickles of oxygen that others can no longer breathe.

God I don’t have enough tears for 400,000 people.

But you do. Mourn with me please I pray. Every tear for one of your beloved. May they fill the ocean with the salt of sorrow, so that we can never again let people die because they are essential or forgotten.

Mourn with me, I pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Pandemic Prayers & Links to Support my Writing

Elections and Infections and Insurrections Prayer

Lord, it’s been quite a week: Elections and Infections and Insurrections. To say we are tired is an understatement. We are stuck, numb.

The prayers that fall from our lips are entreating. Please God make a way for us. Clearly we are lost, squabbling in the desert.

Please. Let us not freeze in this moment. Help us to do justice, and remind us the the doing will take a while and a lot of work. Help us go love mercy—not cheap forgiveness carelessly given, but the deep mercy given to marginalized communities who need the mercy of equity.

And the mercy given to the oppressors after the truth is told.

And Lord if these lessons are what we need to learn to walk humbly, where we do the needful work of God’s without quid pro quo or expectations of reward.

Let us not freeze up—as we have done in crises time and time before, set our hands and minds and feet to do the work. Encourage and en-courage us to try. To move forward inch by inch. Help us not to be alone in the work but to find others, partners in Christ’s service, who are inching with us we pray.

Remind us that God knows we can only see a dim reflection of ourselves, and that we only see in part and know in part. His knows this, and still tells us to do the work.

Sing us to sleep at night, grant us some Sabbath and sanctuary so we can nourished and empowered for the work we pray.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy

With credit to Margaret Aymer Ogrt for her poignant call.

Easter: Topical Prayer

Topical Prayer: God, we are all the characters int he story. The women who find the stone rolled away, and are terrified of the angel, the disciples who do not believe the resurrection to be true, Peter who runs to see it all only to be left with the wrappings from the tomb. As we experience this story, let us embrace the amazement and perplexity of the events. They are truly beyond human ken. Though that is uncomfortable, let us sit with the wonder that Easter is we pray. Amen.  

Maundy Thursday Topical Prayer

Topical Prayer: God it’s been a long journey. And you are ending it by serving us a meal. What an unexpected way for the journey to end. The disciples expected revolution and a call to arms. Instead Jesus spent time with those he loved, celebrating the festival of Unleavened Bread and Praising God. You spent your last night, as you spent your entire life: teaching and loving us by serving us. As we wander through this Mandy Thursday, help us to keep your commandment: to love one another, close to our heart we pray. Amen.