A prayer for the peace walk

Transform Our Gratitude into Courage

By Ted Loder

O God, we are in awe of your grace,
Tough enough to withstand
the tantrums of our arrogance
and the snubs of our indifference,
tender enough to sometimes soften
our on-guard hearts into humility,
our criticisms into compassion,
creative enough to raise up
in every generation and in our midst witnesses
to take up the torch of your passion and purposes,
to speak your word in a new language,
to lead this human family of yours, and ours,
on our common exodus to justice
and toward a peaceable kingdom and joy.

How shall we express our gratitude to you
except by girding up to follow those witnesses.
Strengthen us to walk and work, pray and speak,
to confront the furies of hate and fear,
To overthrow the barriers of discrimination,
To repair the breach of oppression and exploitation
in the body of our single humanity,
To join in the witnesses to integrity and boldness
that makes bright the time of our lives.

We pray not in despair, O Lord, but in thanksgiving
that justice still insists its way into our oft resistant world,
That it continues to be made flesh in the lives
of nameless people whose clarity of vision,
Concerns of spirit, and commitments of conscience
enrich our common life in untold but unfailing ways.

We would gratefully lift those witnesses up to you now
And honor them before you who know them as we do not,
For you reside not only with the least of those in need,
But with those least in vanity or acclaim,
Who know what it is to walk humbly with you.

O God of such holiness
as disturbs all easy contentment,
all frivolous self-seeking,
All idolatrous claims of privilege,
by your grace jolt and transform our gratitude
into the courage to risk security for justice ,
that we and the human family
no longer continue to unravel
into the frivolity and hollowness
of merely personal and private pursuits
that corrode the bonds of community.

Make us bold and visionary enough
To measure our lives not so much
By victories won or successes achieved
But by worthy battles engaged,
Scars of faith endured,
Noble comrades joined.

Help us to learn by heart
the lessons of love you bear on your heart,
Until we wrestle form the depths of our souls
the ways of love,
the perspectives of laughter,
the proportions of your eternal kingdom
that make precious our limited time,
So we will keep our balance
amidst the hucksters of this world
and take you more seriously
than we take ourselves
because you take us more seriously
than eye has seen or ear heard
or imagination reached.

So, God of this ongoing exodus,
We shall sing our thanksgiving to you
As we follow you day by night by day,
Out o four addiction to the lesser goods and gods
of our biases, certainties, and dreams
Toward the vast forever spaces and relationships
of your dream for us of a kingdom
where we listen to and respect each other,
appreciate and learn from each other,
Where no one's need is ignored,
No one's gift turned away,
Where we are as generous with each other
and the whole family of creation,
As you are with us,
And we are a truly free,
As firmly bound,
As deeply grateful,
As everlastingly joyful,
As you mean us to be;
In the spirit of Jesus.
Amen.

Last updated: November 26, 2002