Liturgy
Lord, too often when we hear talk of your law,
we think of rules and restrictions,
strict obedience,
and we balk.
Heal us of our false ideas about your ways.
Forgive us for our small visions of you.
You yourself, becoming human,
fulfilled the law by removing its trappings
and exposing its heart.
In loving us, you broke the rule of an eye for an eye,
offering your full self for free.
Free us, again each second if necessary,
with the fresh and wild knowledge of that grace.
We want to be where the life is, Lord.
Bury us deep in your vision of redemption.
Whet our thirst for peace.
Open our eyes to the redemption sprouting
in every field and sidewalk,
and if it pleases you, let us help you water.
Fill our lungs. Sun our shoulders. Ground our steps.
We know so little of you yet.
Remind us each day of the joy before us:
the slow unfolding of a goodness
we cannot yet imagine.
We pray this in your name:
God, who we reach toward,
Christ, who we root down in,
and the Holy Spirit of our growth. Amen.
(Vox Prayer Team)
Responsive Reading
We offer this prayer as a community on a day of complexity.
Our response will be highlighted in yellow.
To those who gave birth this year to their first child
we celebrate with you
To those who lost a child this year
we mourn with you
To those who are in the trenches with little ones
every day and the badge of food stains
we appreciate you
To those who experienced loss this year
through miscarriage, failed adoptions,
running away, or incarceration
we mourn with you
To those who walk the hard path of infertility,
fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment
we walk with you
Forgive us when we say foolish things
We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms,
and spiritual moms
we need you
To those who have warm and close relationships
with your children
we celebrate with you
To those who have disappointment, heart ache,
and distance with your children
we sit with you
To those who have lost their mothers
we grieve with you
To those who have experienced abuse
at the hands of your mother
we acknowledge your pain
To those who have lived through driving tests,
medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood
we are better because of you
And to those who are pregnant with new life,
both expected and surprising
we anticipate with you
To those who have emptier nests
we grieve and rejoice with you
Mothering is not for the faint of heart
and we have strong caregivers in this place
we remember you
For all those who have lead
with the mothering spirit of strength, compassion,
forgiveness, encouragement and belief in us
we see God’s Love more clearly because of you
We ask all this through God our motherly presence,
Christ our healer,
And Spirit our breath of life,
Amen.
(Adapted from: Amy Young, The Wide Spectrum of Mothering)
Homily and Reflection
Podcast: The Path Less Traveled
Where might you practice delight in the pursuit of liberation and freedom?
What is a practice of consent that you are sensing in your journey?
How are you invited to travel a path that the divine is still revealing?
Resources
Book: An Asian American Theology of Liberation by Wong Tian An
Benediction
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed.
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
and all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
it wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell:
the soil is bare now,
nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
and though the last lights off the black West went,
morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods
with warm breast, and with bright wings.
Be with us now,
our God of deep down delight,
our mercy-rich, rule-breaking Christ,
and our mothering Holy Spirit.
Amen.
(adapted from “God’s Grandeur,” Gerard Manley Hopkins [1877])
[Photo by William Krause]