3.17.24 Prayers of Church & Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, March 17, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Holy God, Eternal Light … creator of the heavens and the earth … your poetry is written

across the evening sky, and inscribed upon our heart … you speak to us quietly and without fanfare … you speak in the tenderness of a child’s smile, their exuberance, and the pleading of their eyes, that we give them a future. You are the unsettling presence that stirs our conscience, you are the soothing mercy that heals the troubled soul. 

Holy God, Eternal Light … we pray for our needs, and those of our loved ones … we give thanks for the good we have done, and we express sorrow for the good we didn’t do … 

We pray, O God, for wisdom … to discern the difference between what is real and what is fantasy … to know falsehood and how it destroys, to know the truth and how it saves … to read the news with careful eyes, to hear the the stories of the day with thoughtful ears … to weigh carefully the claims made, to pray without ceasing, for the counsel of your Holy Spirit.

We give thanks for the likes of King David … his goodness and his achievements … and his honesty when he failed … when he failed those whom he loved, when he failed his nation, when he failed you, O God. 

May the leaders of our world know the boundaries of power … may they be saved from the delusions of status … may the great nations of the world learn the art of restraint, compromise, and doubt - self-doubt, O LORD, an important gift on the road to hope, for nations, and for each of us.

We pray for our YouTube Family - for John and Rose, Marla, Mark, Charles, Anne and Stan - all of them, and more … for their faithfulness, we are grateful, and we pray, O LORD, for their welfare, in mind, body, heart, and soul. 

For our Muslim sisters and brothers, and the Season of Ramadan … 

We pray this day for people of faith throughout our nation … a welter of voices, some claiming special revelation, others just going with the flow … more churchianity than christianity, more form than faith … help us, we pray, to move deeply into the mysteries of our faith, to draw large the circles of concern and purpose, to be more than what we are, to grow and not shrink, to enlarge our cache of wisdom, add to it, enlarge it, give it life, that we might give to the generations to come greatness of courage, breadth of compassion, deeps of serious thinking, and the ethics of justice and peace.

In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ who taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

A Devout Christian of Unfailing Good Humor

Howard Somervell, an Everest Team Member, 1922, is described as "the gentlest of souls, decent and compassionate, a devout Christian of unfailing good humor."*

What a delightful description, and in so many ways, as it should be.

I am reminded of too many "devout Christians" who are anything but gentle, ready to dismiss those with whom they disagree, hardly compassionate and decidedly missing anything remotely resembling good humor.

Sourpuss demeanor and argumentative temperament characterize too many "devout Christians."

Having said that, the above description of Somervell stands as a model for me.

As for gentleness, years ago I had a small banner in my office that read: "gentleness is true strength" or something like that.

As for decent and compassionate, I think of folks I've had the pleasure of knowing who've embodied these virtues rather fully, in such a way that the whole of their life is colored by these sturdy characteristics, and sturdy they are. There's nothing weak-kneed about them.

And unfailing good humor - there's something about that that calls to me. In a world where bad news is abundant, unfailing good humor sustains the soul, lest it decay into darkness, and such humor encourages others to keep up the good work and stay the course.

Good humor acknowledges all the sadness of the world, but retains a deep connection to something the Psalmist describes as "the rock higher than I am."

A man or woman who embodies these qualities is likely to practice a deep presence with others, weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.

And as a friend once described a mutual friend, "When they enter the room, lights are turned on."

May it be so for us all.

To either be such a light for others, or when the dark edges of life creep upon our soul with their shadows, there will be another light to stand beside us, gentle and decent.

*p. 380, Into the Silence by Wade Davis.