November 2004

    Walter Brueggemann, for many years a Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, recently published a book of prayers.  They are stunning, evocative prayers well worth the reading and contemplating.  One in particular struck me as very appropriate for these days leading up to Thanksgiving.  It would be a good one to post on the refrigerator and read again and again.

  We are second and you are first

Before our well-being, there was your graciousness,

    before our delight, there was your generosity,

before our joy, there was your good will.

 

We are second and you are first,

You are there initially with your graciousness, your generosity,

  your good will –

and we receive from your inscrutable goodness grace upon grace,

  gift upon gift, life upon life.

  – because you are there at the beginning,

  at our beginnings.

 

For a quick glimpse, we move out beyond our competence,

  our productivity, our self-sufficiency

  – in our new freedom what we glimpse is you –

  outpouring yourself unreservedly in the midst of our hurt

  and toward our hopes.

  You are there in the splendor of your self-giving.

 

So we speak our timid, trembling praise back to you,

  timid because we are no match for your goodness,

  trembling because our praise means turning our life to you,

  and we do not turn loose easily.

  But we do turn loose to you,

  source and goal of our very life.

 

Our gratitude arises out of the dailiness of our well-being,

  of meals regularly before us, of folks regularly caring for us,

  of homes regularly warm and safe, of sleep regularly refreshing,

  of new days regularly given against the darkness,

  of work regularly filling our days with order and dignity.

And in our taken-for-granted regularity,

  we discern your abiding and fidelity that holds our worlds

  toward well-being.

 

Our gratitude wells up in the midst of such regularity --

  new words spoken, new children born,

  new vistas opened, new risks taken,

  new words uttered that heal,

  We dare confess that in these startling break points,

  we glimpse your powerful care

  which runs beyond our capacity to manage

  and beyond our exhausted capacity to cope..

  You … after all our best efforts,

  it is you, you who hold and you who break.

  And we are grateful.  Amen.

  May each of us express such gratitude day after day.

 God be with you,

Jeff

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