Prayer & Praise

Light from light

Creation from chaos

Life from death

Joy from sorrow

Hope from despair

Peace from hate

All your gifts, all your love, all your power.

All from your word, fresh from your word, all gifts of your speech.

We give thanks for your world-forming speech.

Thanks as well for our speech back to you, the speech of mothers and fathers who dared to speak in faith and unfaith in trust and in distrust in grateful memory and in high hurt.

We cherish this speech as we trust yours.

Listen this day for the groans and yearnings of your world, listen to our own songs of joy and our own drudges of death, and in the midst of our stammering, speak your clear word of life in the name of your word come flesh.

Amen.
Walter Brueggemann. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: The Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (p. 70). Kindle Edition.