two prayers from karlie allaway
For fools and dreamers
Yes we are still fools Yes we are still dreamers
Who else would keep looking at desolation and in the end
only respond by imagining beauty?
Who else would stay in manure and wait for seeds because they remembered a rumour of fruit?
Who else would reach right into the deepest pain and fear and try to love there
even continue to try when hope dies
and love’s flame flickers in the cold wind of selfishness?
May we be saved all the more
from the false sanity of comfort
and numbly knowing all the answers
May our questions old and new
be transfigured into
the kernels of graced dreams
and grow our deep rooted imagination of creation healed and whole
And in our becoming begun again
May the ancient first fruit of inspired hope nurture enough new foolish wisdom
to go on living the love that makes no sense
Within The Bounds Of Grace
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
One circular self giving love
Beyond us and with us and in us
We pray within your beautiful name
We are sorry for the times
Without the lens of faith
We did not see
How you have been present
Healing us, restoring us
And helping us re-member
What was fractured and broken
When we tell our story
We hear it revealed by our own words
And now we see
How you have heard our prayers
And will hear this prayer
We thank you for life and fullness
Once only imagined
Becoming real, tangible and visible
We are so grateful
When we searched within the boundaries of grace
Life was given and revealed
Love was found in places we would not have looked
Hope came through channels we did not expect
Peace was built with fragments unexpectedly fit
When we moved beyond those boundaries
Then returned
Called back within the sound of love
At the border we exchanged
Naivety for wisdom
And cynicism for a deeper hope
And we were amazed
As even our foolishness was not wasted by grace
Now as our stories are changing
From tales of loss to poems of grace
We will sing our laments and protests
Alongside new psalms of healing
Now as some of our wounds turn to scars
As we reach for an old beginning
We think we know how the next chapter should be written
We think we are sure you have given us the words
We think it is time to write them…
But we ask only for what you want to give
From within the boundaries of the embrace
Of a grace we no longer resist
Let what comes next be beautiful
More than the best
We can ask
Or imagine
Amen
[i’m adding them to the worship tricks – no 31, series 4]