In Gratitude for Powerful, Holy Words

Vocal God, you who spoke a world into being and called it good; 

who spoke a Son into birth and called him love; 

who spoke eternity into our hearts that we might hunger for it, 

we give you thanks for the light of this day and the sound of your voice.  

We give thanks that, somehow – through some divine inflection – we have heard our particular name on your lips, and answered with our own voice calling out to yours.  

Lost, you spoke us home.  

Broken, you spoke us whole.  

Confused, you spoke us clear.  

Diminished and empty, you spoke us full.  

 

Forgive us, then, when we close our ears and turn away.  

Forgive us when we prefer the sound of our own voice to the music of yours.  

Forgive us when we fail to hear you speaking through the lips of others and the accents of strangers.  

And forgive us for those times when we prefer the loud and presumptuous voices of the popular, the prestigious, the pretentious, the temporally powerful.  

Here we attune ourselves again and attend to the sound of your still, small voice.  

 

As your receptive people.  

As your redeemed people.  

As your obedient people.  

May your creating, healing, comforting word take shape in and be heard through us, we pray, whose supplicating words we take from your son, who taught us to pray in the first place.

(Prayed with the disciples of Runnells Christian Church, January 23, 2022)