As the mystery of summer engulfs us, we remember how fleeting each season of our lives can be,
and we are reengaged to be people of gratitude.
Thank you God for this fine day.
For the gift of warm sun.
For the rain, when it arrives soft upon thirsty ground.
For the person sitting to our left, our right.
For the friends and neighbors who oil the hinges of our heart’s door with love.
For the stranger in our midst, who reminds us that we are all united in the gift of life through breath and heartbeat and common need.
Let us see you in the gift of life, in our waking, in our body’s rhythms, in our growing up and aging, in the great cloud of witnesses who accompany us all the days of our life.
For this and so much more we are grateful, O God. Do not let our gratitude be platitudes, but instead help us to notice with authenticity the small things that add up to great joy, the moments that resonate, and the connections that make up the song of life.
Be with those who grieve.
Those who are sick.
Those who are enduring treatments.
Those who dwell in uncertain futures.
Be with those we love who are worried, anxious, unable to shake their troubles.
Be especially in Afghanistan. Haiti. The Hospitalized.
Do not let us live unconcerned, dismissive, deaf to the sorrows of the world. Help us to hear, help us to respond, help us to be balm and hope and love embodied.
Sing to us deep within the resonant chambers of our body, where we know your presence, everlasting, ever-known. Let our lives give testimony to the melody of love that you hope to string between us. Change us. Let us be transformed.
And hear us as we unite our voices praying the prayer Jesus teaches us saying… Our Father