Unspeakable Beauty

This version of a classic prayer knocks my socks off and knits me a new pair to wear in the same breathless moment.

The Lord’s Prayer

Father of the Forgotten, Mother of the Miscarried, Adopter of the Orphan

You who whisper our names, saying “Yes, you belong…”

May our palms grow calloused from laying the bricks of your Kin-dom

May our backs ache from carting wheelbarrows full of love

May our arms grow strong from mixing batch after batch of grace

May we sweat peace and drink from the well of compassion, resting when we are weary under the shade of fragrant trees.

Lead us into vulnerability, to thin places where our defensiveness is disarmed, where our charming white picket fences give way to lawns’ lines blurred into an endless welcoming parkway of beckoning grass.

Let the paths before us lead us to your home, however unlikely they may seem—unpaved, dirty, smelling of wood fires, trash fires…

paths open to the wind, small houses with laundry hung to dry on the edge of fields…

paths we’d never expect.

For such is your Kin-dom: growing slowly up through the soil against all odds.

For such is your power: like that of a janitor, mopping late into the night, unseen, passionate, patient.

For such is your glory: the applause of heavy rain,

the satisfying laughter of echoing thunder,

threads of lightning stitching together earth and sky,

and us to one another—-and all that is your faithful constant presence.

Amen.

                                                                                             —written/adapted by Matthias Peterson-Brandt, clipped from a bulletin put together by Michelle Tooley 6 years ago, posted today on Facebook by Naomi Schulz, and shared with me by Jaye Starr…thank you to you all! My weary soul needed this gift today to remind me of our amazing God, regardless of religious tradition.

LeAnn