The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster

God, you alone know the place of wisdom,
and you carve a way through deep river canyons and on the wings of dawn,
so that we might glimpse your divine way.

Give us a map to such wisdom,
sound insight into how to move forward in our own lives,
how to discern the next step,
the next longing unfolding just beyond the horizon.

We need your guidance for what’s next, O God.
Something is being forged within,
and we need your presence within, between, among,
dwelling at the center of all we are.

You, inexhaustible one, meet us in loss, in void, in the mystery beyond language,
where what we know about you is marked only in limestone, riverbed, storm cloud,
stitched together in the night sky.

Our own breath, heartbeat, bodies speak of the incarnation,
where muscle, sinew, bone become the song that foretells the beauty of your nearness,
your spirit alive in the pool of light that is our life.

Help us to see you as midsummer dreams fade and we walk out toward winter,
wrapped in autumn leaves, awaiting the crisp cool days that smell just right.

Travel with us, knowing that at times we are underwater, unaware,
just lost enough that we have not loved our neighbor,
that we have not fed the hungry,
that we have not sought the justice the sojourner deserves.

When we are preoccupied with ourselves,
muster the courage to nudge us toward a new compassion.

When we are in a rut, divided against ourselves,
mute the noise that prevents us from an embodied love,
and stretch out your arm to us, so that we might be transformed.

Stitch us back together, a care that is tender,
a dream that lives within our bones, a warmth, a charity, a kindness,
an altruism passed down grandmother to granddaughter,
grandfather to grandson.

Carry our sorrows, today.
Mend our wounds, and hear the cry of our muted hearts.
In faith and in silence.
Amen.