Listening in Prayer

Migration

This year Marie drives back and forth
from the hospital room of her dying friendto the office of the adoption agency.

I bet sometimes she doesn't knowWhat threshold she is waiting at—

the hand of her sick friend, hot with fever;the theoretical baby just a lot of paperwork so far.

But next year she might be standing by a grave,wearing black with a splash ofbanana vomit on it,the little girl just starting to say Sesame Streetand Cappuccino latte grand Mommy.The future ours for a while to hold, with its heaviness—

and hope moving from one location to anotherlike the holy ghost that it is.

Migration" by Tony Hoagland from What Narcissism Means To Me © Graywolf Press, 2003

At the many thresholds of our future, may our prayers this week seek Help in holding all the heaviness of our deepest griefs and longings. May we find there the Holy hope to we need to keep moving from this place to the next. Amen.

Prayer Partner, Week 1

Our Congregation is deep into the DISCIPLE Bible Study series. We run several classes with different leaders (who go through extensive training) throughout the year. This fall there are two classes engaged in the short (6 week) study of Genesis. Part of the process involves asking for someone to pray for each of the participants as they engage in the study of God’s Word. I’ve been assigned a lovely gentleman whose journey into a deeper relationship with the Word I will have the privilege of lifting before God prayer in the coming weeks. As a reminder that I am praying for him daily, I will be sending him weekly encouragement as well:

"If I insist on giving you my truth, and never stop to receive your truth in return, then there can be no truth between us. Christ is present 'where two or three are gathered in my name.' But to be gathered in the name of Christ is to be gathered in the name of the Word made flesh, of God made man. It is therefore to be gathered in the faith that God has become man and can be seen in man, that he can speak in man and that he can enlighten and inspire love in and through any man I meet." Thomas Merton

My Brother,
As you begin your Disciple study my prayer for you is that this time of learning and fellowship opens you to the truth of the Word of God, to the truth of the Word made flesh in your own life and in the lives those with whom you are sharing this important journey. I pray that as you gather in study you see in their eyes and hearts Christ real in your midst, that as you speak the truth of your own life and listen to the truth of the other lives spoken among you that it is Christ’s truth that your hear. May this time of personal study of the Word of God and the study of his Word in a gathering of his people, enlighten and inspire in you love. May this love come to all who grace your days. Amen.