Prayers of the People

Lord Christ, who loves us all with equal measure, we bring to your care the children in our world whose souls and bodies have been ravaged by abuse of all kinds;  of malice;  of neglect;  of evil.  We lift these little ones to your protection.  We pray that You will put your hedge around them so that there will never be damage which is beyond healing. We pray that you will begin to knit their souls back together again.  We pray for teachers, friends, neighbours who come into contact with children such as these.  We pray for Agencies whose staff strive to rescue children from harm;  theirs is a difficult task and we ask for wisdom and efficiency for them. Bless adults who have terrible memories of abuse or trauma.  Give them coping mechanisms and healing.  Have mercy on them as they attempt to overlay their bad memories with good ones.

We commit into your care today, those who will contemplate suicide;  those for whom this seems an answer to the pain of their lives.

Bless those with degenerative illness, especially Motor Neuron disease and Cystic Fibrosis.  Bring us closer to knowing the cause and cure of these illnesses.  For those who suffer from Schizophrenia, we pray.  We ask that they will receive very real help and understanding. 

Bless those who are grieving, who are disappointed, disillusioned;  for those who are tempted beyond what they think they can bear. For those unfairly victimized, give your deliverance.

We pray for those who mourn:  for lost loved ones;  for children straying;  for broken relationships;  for personal hurts and disappointments.

The winds of melancholy blow over us all at times and we can’t sense your presence.  We look for signs and miracles and wonder why you are silent in the face of our suffering, and learn at last that the best of your power is your quiet abiding in our hearts,  and the imparting of your beautiful character to us.  You bring good out of bad and remake our suffering, until changed from glory to glory, we are more like you. We still believe you, though we can’t always understand, and it’s this kind of faith which can break down strongholds and summon the angel host.

You use the hardships in our lives to lead us to a deeper abiding in the steadfast strength of your love. You grieve with us when we grieve and you remake the suffering until our souls are bright with the warmth of your flawless and beautiful character and we are strong and happy.

Our heads are full of dreams;  our hands are full of chattels.  Lord, we offer to you the things which are most important to us.  Sometimes they obscure our connection to you.  We cling to their importance.  But the shadow of the cross will always fall on us;  we are your people.  Help us to live with a clear, uncluttered vision of the things which You hold dear. 

We look to Jesus, light of the world, comforter, counsellor, prince of peace, author of love, who cannot lie, who cannot cheat and who will never lead us anywhere which is unsafe for our souls. 

Christ, whose countenance is always kindly turned towards our frailty, give us grace to run bravely the race of faith, to fight steadfastly the good fight; to love all who cross our path.  

Christ, who has promised a harvest of righteousness to those who sow in peace, give us your holy presence today, that we may see our way clearly, without the shadow of ego and willfulness. Amen

 

This prayer is the intellectual property of Susan Starr. Please feel free to use it in Christian ministry, and acknowledge it as my work.

Auschwitz, Arthur Dodds, and the swans

Some time ago, I watched a programme about Auschwitz and the story of a man who had been a prisoner there.  I think it was featured on Songs of Praise.  It was the story of an English man, now very elderly, who had been held in the POW part of Auschwitz.  He had seen and heard all the terrible things which had been done to the Jews by the Nazis.  When the Russian and American troops came in 1945, he had been released by walking 700 kms to meet them.  When he got home to England, he had become very depressed by the horror of his experience.  He spent his time walking through the English countryside. 

 

One day, as he sat on the shore of a lake, he watched a pair of swans.  The male swan came up to him and put it’s beak on his shoulder, very near to his face.  He was wary because he thought that if he moved away, the swan would peck him, so he stayed there keeping very still. After a little while, he  began to feel a great peace come over him;  he felt the presence of God descend upon him.  He looked at the 2 beautiful swans and thought that if there were lovely creatures like this still in the world, what business had he to be so depressed.  He said it was as though the swan understood what he’d been through.  He felt the great burden of sorrow fall away.  It was a very moving story.  He was a man of faith and had been sustained through his ordeal by reading the Bible 2½ times over. His name was Arthur Dodds.

Thank you God for your gifts of beauty, resilience, courage, healing and faith.

“…… Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.  Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.” Rev 21:3b to 4

Of poverty and Providence; of being content with what we have.

I fall so easily to feeling sorry for myself.  These past few weeks have been so busy and I never have great reserves of strength, so I get depleted easily.  If I'm not careful, depletion can lead to depression, simply because I haven't the strength to throw it off. It wasn't helped by a man who has a three times the income I have, telling me about his lovely holiday, which was at a Beach Resort, and for which he only had to pay half price.

 

The arrow of comparing my life with his, struck home and I felt that God must love him more than me, because I can't afford a holiday every year, certainly not one at a Resort for half price! 

 

It is never wise to compare our lives and our losses with other people's, who seem not to have much go wrong. When I indulge in this self-destructive activity, it always brings me low.

 

There are certainly people of my acquaintance who seem to fall in this "comfortable" category.  I often wonder why this is so, and how this equates to a Providential God.

 

But I don't actually want to debate if God is providential or not, in this blog.

 

It led me to think of other people, whose lives have been defined and cauterised by loss and suffering, and great want.  People caught in the trap of Hitler's evil madness;  people who lived through the Great Depression;  the Irish through the famine; the servant class in England;  the outcaste in India;  the poor in Africa.  And I realize how lucky I am.

 

I think there has always been the privileged and rich few, and the poor disadvantaged masses.  To be fair there will also be a great multitude who are in between to varying degrees, but who basically have enough.  And even though I am down the lower end of my country's income-level, Australia is one of the most affluent countries in the world, so I certainly have enough. 

No matter which system governs, it will always be the same - there will always be, to varying degrees, the few rich and the many poor, because this is what money does - it divides people to classes.  There will always be, in the heart of man, the desire to accumulate more and more wealth.  This is an original flaw - an indelible line on man's carnal blueprint.  The opposite trait is also there;  the desire to help and ease the burden of the poor, but this is grafted on by God's influence.  It is a tenuous, fragile vine, susceptible always to the decay of greed and self-interest.  So, money and the business of getting more of it will always be the deciding factor in how the world's people live.  Those who love money the most, very often end up with a great deal of it.

   

The only sure thing about our lives, is death.  It's absolutely indisputable.  But we spend our lives pretending it isn't going to happen.  We hurtle, unprepared and in denial, towards our own demise.  We spend our whole life's energy amassing as much wealth and status as we can but when we stand at death's threshold, a higher power will tell us we can't take our stash beyond;  that it is not viable currency and that another measure will be used to weight our worth, stamp our passport and determine our destination. 

So it's better to give thanks for what we have, live simply and with contentment for what we have been given by a Providential God, without comparing what we think he's given others.

prayer of thankfulness

Lord of all, we thank you for the abundance of the essential things we enjoy;  for fresh water, good food, adequate shelter, excellent medical services, safety.  Bless with abundance, those who have less than we do.

We thank you for lavish supply of the simple things;  hot showers, clean sheets, the smell of fresh washing;  of rain on dry earth; for every colour imagined by a creative and generous God, we give you thanks.

We thank you for the rain falling today on our earth;   for the emerging food crops across our region;  thank you for the farmers who planted them.  We pray for a good harvest and a growing sense amongst these practical and innovative people, of the need for safety precautions in their workplace.

St Clements, in the wheat paddocks

Some time ago, I attended an "Art for the Soul" at St Clements, Galong, near Goulburn in NSW, Australia.  It's a monastery run by the shared ministry of the Redemptorist congregation and the Sisters of St Josephs.  The buildings are beautiful and date from the early 1800's.  For those reading from other countries, this will not seem old to you, but in Australia, this is nearly as old as our white nation! (Indigenous peoples lived here for thousands of years before white settlement in 1788)

The Monastery is now the home of retired Sisters and Priests, and is also used for conferences and Retreats for Christian people.  It's set in the rolling hills of the surrounding countryside.  Wheat and Canola crops stretch away to the horizon in all directions. 

There is a cemetery on the property.  It's where the monks and priests from the Monastery are buried. 

 When I was on my Creative Writing retreat, I walked one morning to the Cemetery.  It was in October, which is our spring, and when the Joe Blakes start to wake up from their winter somnolence.  We have some very poisonous and deadly snakes in Australia and because the Monastery is in farming country, we are really trespassing on their habitat. 

 

So I was aware as I made my way down and up the lane to the graves, that I would need to keep an eye out for the dreaded red-bellied brown snake, or the black snake, or even the deadly copper-headed snake. 

 

I was a little scared, but I grew up on a farm and know that if I encountered a snake, it would try it's best to get away.  But you just need to be aware that if you accidentally step on one, or try and corner it, you can be bitten. So I wondered what I would do if I was bitten when I was on my own, some 5kms away from the buildings.

 

For a moment, I felt fearful and exposed and alone.  Then I thought of all the people who live all their moments with this kind of fear, multiplied many times, and from many sources.  People who live in refugee camps;  people who live where violent militant armies hold power;  people who must go miles through bush and unsafe places, to get water or food; people who live in unsafe neighbourhoods.

 

I thought of how unsafe they must feel every day from threat of violence or capture or oppression.

 

I prayed for their safety.

prayer for peace

Lord, we entreat you to bring our nations back to God.

Break in on the madness of our violence against each other.  Bring to nought the machinations of men who plot to take what isn't theirs, and inflict their ferocious oppression on those who have no power. Breathe a new heart into those who live with revenge as their moral compass.  Raise up strong souls who will speak and act for peace. Protect the innocent;  shackle malice;  overcome evil with good.

We beseech you to intrude upon our greed;  disentangle us from our consumerism with your example of simplicity.  Temper our prejudices with your compassion. Have governance over those who prey on others.

Bless those burnt by the hypocrisy and carelessness of the organised church.  Heal those who have been abused in any way. Cajole those who have abandoned their faith, back to a rich knowledge of your Presence.

We ask you to renew those who are world-weary with refreshment and strength.  Give a renewed thirst for wholesomeness, to  those who have allowed the weeds of unholy living to choke their happiness.  Help those who battle with depression and anxiety. 

Be ever present with our secular leaders so they never go too far into bad practice or oppressive purpose.

Bless us, your authentic people as we all walk our own journeys.  Give us always, across and between our different traditions, a unity in You, as the body of Christ.

Shine on our darkness;  encourage our holiness, authenticate our witness with our resolve to live your precepts, so that our lives will light the way to faith, for those who have no hope. 

We invite you to share all our grief and mitigate our sorry with your peace. 

The Winsomeness of Passion

One of the things I enjoy most as the varied tide of humanity streams through my life, is the particular colour, people who are passionate about something, bring.  It might be gardening, or golf, or good grief, it might be football!

Let me share with you a gentleman of my acquaintance who has enriched my life with the expression of his particular fixation.  The name has been changed to protect the innocent.  I’ve called him Bill.

Bill is a man who calls a spade a spade. Some might say he is bombastic;  his firmly-held opinions are delivered with force and finality. But this barge-like manner is tempered by a deeply ingrained cheerfulness and goodwill.  I prefer to call his personality robust.

This rather large personality is housed in a short, rotund little physique, which has a very round face, black hair and  glasses.  When Bill smiles, it makes beguiling dimples in his rosy cheeks. Bill is rather fond of his homemade brew (another of his passions), which gives him a large tummy, or,  as my father called it, a “brewer’s goitre”. Over this vast  expanse are stretched black braces,  the better to hold up his pants.

Bill’s passion is pigeon racing. I find myself, after the service one Sunday morning, standing next to him in the queue for morning tea.  So, there we are shuffling towards the morning tea table.  “How are your pigeons going Bill”  I ask.  Bill’s response is immediate.  (His language occasionally veers away from the straight and narrow of the ladies-coffee-morning standard, and sets foot in the boys-at-the-pub-on-a-Saturday-arvo level) “Well bugger me if I didn’t loose one to a hawk yesterdee”.  This is delivered at full forte volume and those around blink and turn their heads, as they are also bombarded with this disappointing news.  “No sooner out of the box, she was, and a blanky hawk came from no-where and got ‘er”.  “What a shame”  says I, all concern and nodding sympathy.  With a little more gentle inquiry from me, his voice takes on a more instructional  tone.  He shifts his weight on to both his feet, spacing them slightly apart as he does so. His hands come out of his pockets and he folds them across his body, head slightly dropped,  he becomes the tutor, the teacher, the expert caught up in a subject he loves.   “You’ve got you’re racing stock,  then you’ve got your breeding cocks and broody hens.  Then I’ve got a few youngsters still getting used to flying with the mob”  (shouldn’t that be ‘flock’, but I didn’t say it!). His little black eyes, inscribed with intensity, bore into mine  as he launches into the finer points on housing, diet, breeding and of course, racing.  I am as much transfixed by his passion for it, as I am by the actual facts.

His unique sense of humour also displays this bombastic quality.  Bill is never content with a little twitter or a giggle.  Not for him the polite, gentle chuckle. When he finds something funny, and he frequently does, he twinkles up at me over his glasses, his face splits into an endearing grin (he also has a dieresis) , then he applies himself to a sonorous, booming belly laugh, during which his tummy shakes gently.  

Bill’s other passion is home brew.  He can give you the low down on the best brands for different flavour or keeping quality.  His knowledge  about ingredients, bottling techniques, storage time, is extensive.  He can tell you which brand most tastes like Victoria Bitter…. And that’s something I was dying to know.   His laundry is full of the paraphernalia of home brewing, and he loves it.  Once, at a Parish Council meeting, we were discussing the family camp and Anne was giving a run down on the facilities of the venue.  Bill asks, with just a hint of anxiety, “What are the refrigeration facilities like Anne?”  “Oh, quite adequate”  she replies breezily.  “Oh good” says Bill, relieved, “because…  you know” (his voice takes on quite a wistful quality) “I was thinking about how I’d get the home brew chilled”. 

Then, further along in the meeting the accommodation facilities are discussed “It’s dormitory style” says Anne, “but there’s room to put all the adolescent boys in together, with perhaps an adult to supervise”.  The full regalia of his personality comes into force now.  “ What?!” he shouts, “Sleep in with that noisy lot? – I’m blowed if I’ll do it!”. 

But you know, for all his rampaging, bombastic personality, I cannot find it in my heart to censor him.  He is an unfailingly honest man in every way.  No pretense;  no shuttered secrets or veiled malice. There is nothing snide or sneaky about Bill. What you see is what he is.  And goodness knows, the world needs more of that. 

In conclusion then, what a joy it is for me to run across these people.  Could I encourage you to keep an eye out for them too.  Look with fresh eyes on the people of your circle.  You might just find an enriching and delightful example of all the complex, eccentric, wonderful tapestry which is the essence of the common man.