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The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster

We have felt your nudge all week long: in the struggle of this week’s work, in the long spaces between rest, in the intensity of family life, in the upturned palms, waiting, questioning, searching for a way through. You have been there amid all this and more, your presence forging a path toward hope, your nearness giving strength, the beauty of your creation crying out as witness to your deep love for us and the world. Hold us in the ungraspable tug of life, the ebb and flow of the everyday, where your unending song can be heard. 

In our personal lives, and across the wide expanse of global trouble, hold us in our grief, God. Let us receive the gift of love through this heartache, let us see the vast beauty of the night sky and feel less alone in the fabric of this life. Let us wear the garments of sorrow gently, so that we are held but not weighed down.

On the wide boulevard of life, let us practice gratitude: first for the autumn air, the deep purple, golden yellow, fire orange leaves falling to the ground, and then the knobby twigs strewn about after the wind. For the gift of family, their attentiveness to the task of being together, their genuine acts of love, their self-sacrifice, their transparent care. For the mystery of employment, the daily tasks that feel at once mundane and monumental, the way we spend our days becoming the way we live our lives. And for the child-like delight of tomorrow’s holiday, the possibility of joy, laughter, and delight as we say “trick or treat” to one another. Let there be safety among the sweets, as we go door to door. 

God, our hearts are turned toward you. Continue to carry us, hold us, care for us, letting your presence known as we pray the prayer you teach us saying,  Our Father…. Amen.