oh, First of all,
you, who is so often our Last Resort,
who is typically near the bottom of the list,
you are our way - our only way - to health and wholeness...to ourselves.
forgive us for giving you only a glance;
for our passionate prejudice and fierce self-reliance.
where we have treated independence like a golden god,
refine us, and melt it down until we see the spaces in us,
spaces only you can fill.
when we face those who would challenge us;
when we are questioned or cajoled,
when life seems to cast its cold and callous shadow over us,
whose name will we call, o gentle healer?
will we speak the name our parents gave us as a temporary signpost,
or will we dare to utter the name above all names?
we pray for courage,
for the guts to speak the name
that turns death to life and despair to hope,
which turns broken pieces into beauty, and dead dry bones into divine dance.
we are the rejectors.
and yet you have redeemed us.
o cornerstone of our hope,
remind us again that your name is not a weapon
to be brandished against those who seek truth,
but is instead a Way for us to live and move
from the grave to the dance.
teach us again that your name is not a magic ticket,
but a place on which to build our hope:
your name is humility, least, Love.
help us be ever-ready to give an answer
to the powers-that-be,
and may that answer be you,
only you,
First of all.
amen.
april 26, 2012...after meditating on acts 4:5-12
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