.we begin.

With the energy we have,

we begin the day,

watching and waiting and hoping.

We wait,

not clear about our waiting.

But filled with a recklessness,

daring to imagine

that You are not finished yet-

so we wait,

patiently, impatiently,

restlessly, confidently,

quaking and fearful,

boldly and daring...

Attend to us- by attending in power and in mercy,

remake this alien world into our proper home.

-Walter Brueggemann

(grateful for prayerbooks

with which to start fall rhythms.)

And then you.

We arrange our lives as best we can,
     to keep your holiness at bay,
          with our pieties,
               our doctrines,
               our liturgies,
               our moralities,
               our secret ideologies,
Safe, virtuous, settled.
And then you-
     you and your dreams,
     you and your visions,
     you and your purposes,
     you and your commands,
     you and our neighbors.
We find your holiness not at bay,
     but probing, pervading,
          insisting, demanding.
And we yield, sometimes gladly,
          sometime resentfully,
          sometimes late... or soon.
We yield because you, beyond us, are our God.
     We are your creatures met by your holiness,
                    by your holiness made our true selves.
     And we yield. Amen.

(pray as you can, not as you can't.)

Isaiah...

...has been my obsessively-favorite book of the Bible since my freshman year of college.

I started reading a Walter Brueggemann* commentary on its second half a few months ago but put it down for Lenten reading. Going back through my notes on the first few chapters this week. A few quotes which stand out from the introduction...

"This single assertion, that Yahweh has defeated Babylon and Judah is free to depart exile, is the primary theme of all of Isaiah 40-55."

"Emancipation is perhaps for a larger purpose than simply the gift of homecoming."

"The text gives 'comfort' from the God of all comfort, but not easily and not obviously- perhaps only hiddenly (see 45:15)."

"Yahweh has planned comfort for the exiles, and none can prevent it." (emphasis is text's)

"The ministry of Jesus is a glad and public homecoming for all those alienated and dislocated."

"The 'good news' is summarized: "Behold your God". Or we might say, "Look, here is your God.""

"Yahweh is present, powerful, active; Yahweh's presence changes everything."

"Yahweh is strong enough to emancipate, gentle enough to attend to wants and needs."

"On both counts of strength and attentiveness, it is asserted that Yahweh is incomparable."


So good to be comforted by learning about His character.



*Walter Brueggemann has decades of Old Testament scholarship and is widely respected as a hugely influential theologian...
And he writes prayers of praise which contain "...deep awareness of all the places where your newness is not yet visible, and has not yet come."
Learned and respected theologians... who praise simultaneously with acknowledging deeply fallow places... are just like so totally my favorites.

You give... and we receive.

"We are Your people... like Mother Hannah,
            we come with our several eating disorders,
                                                      trembling lips,
                                                      needy hands,
                                                      fallen faces,
                                                      quiet in despair.
            Because we do not have what we need, by ourselves-
            to make a future. And so we ask.

And You give! Generously, abundantly, inexplicably.
            You give more than we ask or think or need,
                        enough for all our futures,
                        enough for joy,
                        enough for well-being beyond our trembling neediness.

You give... and we receive.

            We receive and sometimes we own and covet and possess.

            We receive and imagine it is our purchase.

            We receive Your good gifts like property.

            We receive and want more.

You give... and we receive...

            Sometimes we only thank in amazement.

            Sometimes we yield in gratitude.

            Sometimes we turn our joy into sacrifice and give back.

            Sometimes we become more fully Yours

                        in obedience and gladness...

We pray in thanks.

Amen."

-walter brueggemann,

on reading 1 Samuel 1

.alignment.

"We are people who must sing You,
          for the sake of our very lives.
You are a God who must be sung by us,
          for the sake of Your majesty and honor.

And so we thank You,
          for lyrics that push us past our reasons,
          for melodies that break open our givens,
          for cadences that locate us home,
                    beyond all our safe places,
          for tones and tunes that open our lives beyond control
                    and our futures beyond despair.

We thank You for the long parade of mothers and fathers
          who have sung You deep and true;
We thank You for the good company
          of artists, poets, musicians, cantors, and instruments
          that sing for us and with us, toward You.

We are witnesses to Your mercy and splendor.
We will not keep silent... ever again. Amen."

-brueggemann

so grateful for this book that always reminds my heart Who i get to know.

hoping and planning to spend lots of time in it this fall.

We are grateful to be called by You.

"...Give us courage for our different vocations,

and energy for our different Hope."

-Walter Brueggemann

And we feebly watch for You and wait.

"...Teach us how to weep while we wait,

and how to hope while we weep,

and how to care while we hope."

-Brueggemann

.this mercy is our only trust.

"We yearn, in every season, for Your presence;
We know that our hearts will be restless, until they rest in You;
We are like deer who seek a watering hole in the drought;
We hear invitations for 'all who are weary and heavy-laden...'
               And approach to You seems ready and easy.

Truth to tell, we do pant restlessly,
         but not always for You.
               Sometimes, instead for security
                                   or sex and beer and sports,
                                   or power and success,
                                   or beauty and acceptance... not seeking You.

Truth to tell, we know You to be no easy mark,
       with Your rigorous entrance requirements
                                   of blamelessness, truth-telling, no bribes,
                                   and all manners of neighborliness.

We yearn for You in every season,
       making You too easy, imagining You too difficult,
       bewildered and unsure until You give Yourself concretely to us...
       as You have done and as You do. Amen."

-Brueggemann

Rhythms.

"We give thanks for your ordered gift of life to us,

       for the rhythms that reassure,

       for the equilibriums that sustain."

"We treasure from you,

days to work and nights to rest.

We cherish from you,

days to control and nights to yield.

We savor from you,

days to plan and nights to dream."

-Walter Brueggeman,

"Our true home"

You with ears bent close to our lips.

"...So many words we need to speak
          to you from whom no secret can be hid,
          you beyond us, you with us, you for us,
          you with ears bent close to our lips,
You... and our woes turned towards you, always you, only you,
          yet again you.
Amen."

-Brueggemann,

from "You with ears bent close to our lips: Approaching the Psalter"

.this is so so so my heart exactly these days.

"We yearn, in every season, for your presence.
We know that our hearts will be restless, until they rest in you...

Truth to tell, we do pant restlessly,
       but not always for you.
               Sometimes, instead for security
                                   or sex and beer and sports,
                                   or power and success,
                                   or beauty and acceptance... not seeking you.

...We yearn for you in every season,
        making you too easy, imagining you too difficult,
       bewildered and unsure until you give yourself concretely to us,
        as you have done and as you do. Amen."

-Brueggemann, "Not always for you"

Read that a couple days ago after a restless wrestling prayer day and almost cried.

Yes to yearning but not always for Him.

 Yes to making him too easy and yes to imagining Him too difficult,

yes to bewildered and unsure,

and oh yes to how He gives Himself concretely to me, anyway.

Oops.

I accidentally ordered some books online this week. I didn't mean to!

(Haven't found a liturgical church here yet!)

(I think I'm going to do my research paper for spiritual formation on Julian of Norwich... So it really counts as a textbook...)

 

(...I just really like Brueggemann?)

Whoops.

(Amazon and your lame one-click button. Horrible wretched marketing scheme.)

Memory verse for the month: "But the fruit of the spirit is... self-control." Galatians 5:22-23.
Working on it. Hm, I wonder if there are any good books on it available...

"God of our times, our years, our days...

You are the God of our work,
                                of our rest,
                                of our weariness.
Our times are in your hands. We come to you now
     in our strength and in our weakness,
      in our hope and in our despair,
     in our buoyancy and in our disease.

We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us in our greed.
     We are among those who want more...


     ...Be for us enough and more than enough,
     for we know about your self-giving generosity."

-Brueggemann,

"With all the graciousness we can muster"

And then you.

"We arrange our lives as best we can,
      to keep your holiness at bay,
             with our pieties,
                     our doctrines,
                     our liturgies,
                     our moralities,
                     our secret ideologies,
Safe, virtuous, settled.
And then you-
     you and your dreams,
     you and your visions,
     your and your purposes,
     you and your commands,
     you and our neighbors.
We find your holiness not at bay,
     but probing, pervading,
          insisting, demanding.
And we yield, sometimes gladly,
          sometimes resentfully,
          sometimes late... or soon.
We yield because you, beyond us, are our God.
     We are your creatures met by your holiness,
                            by your holiness made our true selves.
     And we yield. Amen."

-Walter Brueggemann,

"And then you",

from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth.

Absolutely buried in this book and cannot recommend it highly enough

(it mayyy in fact already be on my list for birthday gifts for several of you...)

We are studying Celebration of Discipline in my Spiritual Formation class

(side note: I picked a graduate program that has Nouwen and Foster as assigned reading- I am so in the right place, huh?!),

and this week I copied down a quote about 

"the temptation to study the disciplines without experiencing them".

I am trying to truly pray these words, not just study or even enjoy them.

Brueggemann has been a great fit for me...

somehow as I read and pray it is easy to recognize immediately that the God he wrote to is mine.

But his words and heart convict me-

his prayers spell out clearly that this world and life are not about me.

Excited to keep praying through this book,

helped to find words to Him and hopefully formed into a heart more for Him.

(More will definitely follow.)

No newness yet

A prayer of Walter Brueggemann

You are the God who makes all things new.

We gladly raise our voices and move our lips
to acknowledge, celebrate, and proclaim
your staggering newness.

As we do so, we hold in our hearts
deep awareness of all the places where your newness
is not visible, and
has not yet come.

Our hearts link to many places of wretchedness
short of your newness.

We picture folks at home,
sick, in pain, disabled, paralyzed
(we name Frank),
and no newness yet.

We know up close the deep wretchedness
of poverty, of homelessness, of hunger
and no newness yet.

Move our hearts closer to the passion of our lips.

Move our lips closer to your own newness.

Work your newness in hidden, cunning ways among us.

Move us closer to your bodied newness in Jesus,
newness of strength come in weakness,
newness of wisdom come in foolishness.

Draw us from the wretchedness we know
to his scarred, bloody wretchedness
that is your odd entry of newness into our life.

We pray in the name of his suffering newness.

Amen.

Hat tip: Beautiful Bree, Current HNGR Intern in Rwanda