Today’s Wednesday Prayer is brought to you by one of my favorites – favorite writer, favorite truth teller, favorite singer. She just happens to be my favorite sister, too.
She led in worship on All Saints Day last week, and wrote this gorgeous prayer. I’m told that her instructions were, “Yes, you can be yourself. Put in enough Ashley that it’s you, but not so much that you scare the Methodists.” Now, I know Methodists don’t scare easily, and neither does God. I’m thankful that Ashley put her whole self in the prayer. Methodists – and Baptists – would do well to realize what a gift they have in counting Ashley among their own.
A General Thanksgiving
for All Saints Day
by Ashley Robinson
Blessed Comforter, we thank you for the lives of the poets, the prophets, and the profane;
the well-behaved and the rabble-rousers, the peacemakers, the music makers, the noisemakers, the caramel cake makers and the mess makers;
the list keepers and the delightfully scattered,
and even the unnamed, undocumented, and unmentionable people who have gone before us.
We thank you for the great cloud of witnesses that shades us with comfort as we continue to walk each other home.
We thank you for the saints still among us who awaken us to the possibility of your kindom here on earth.
We thank you for the borrowed breath that sustains us from dust to dust.
We find hope that you hear every damning why, every shattered Hallelujah, every tear-ragged thank you
as a groaning to be filled with your life-giving spirit that welcomes us into community with the Christ who suffered before us and the Source who mourns with us.
Amen.
More from Ashley here.
