Almighty and
merciful God, in your goodness keep me, I pray, from all things that may hurt
me, that I, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with a free heart
those things which belong to Your purpose; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who
lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Our Father, who
art in heaven, hallowed be Your Name. May Your kingdom come, and Your will be
done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil; for Yours are the kingdom and the power and the glory
forever and ever. Amen.
Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies
and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we
may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with
which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we
share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share
abundantly in comfort too.
I am a big fan of
fixed prayers.
They are very helpful
in wrenching my thoughts away from the temporal, from what will rot or rust and
be burned in big heaps to what is of eternal value.
And there is a
glorious sense of community, of the Church on bended knee throughout the
centuries.
And yesterday was full
of corporate prayer, body prayer.
My daily lectio
divina. Singing old hymns. Chris’s blessing at the end of
the service. Meg Chandler’s reading during the Desert Christian baccalaureate.
Crying out at His Feet for the Near East.
And yesterday Wali and
his friend Simone drove down from Phoenix to say goodbye to Shaun. He took lots
of pictures, which embarrassed Shaun in a good way. And we reminisced a bit of
our life together. Who could ever guess this trajectory? And with Wali it
always starts with picking him up at the Greyhound station. He had been living
in a Colorado town of five hundred with an old Mormon couple who ran the local
hardware store, and his first exposure to America was all about baseball and
country music.
And he didn’t even go
to his own high school graduation, but rather he went to Ali’s at Desert. But
we all showed up at his graduation from the University of Arizona in December
and cheered after each of his awards. And there were so many long nights, and
riding the buses and getting up when it was still dark in order to go to class.
And his four jobs. And there was the asylum hearing that Dustin and I went to
that was amazingly horrible because of the incompetence of his lawyer. And even
now, he comes home from work and studies and studies and is now certified to
sell mutual funds in all fifty states. And he and John compared muscles because
it is clear both of them work out a lot.
And looking back it
is so very easy to see the hand of God at work. Which is a good thing to
remember looking forward, plodding through a dark tunnel.
And I talked a bit
with Simone. And her grandparents were Catholic. And she whispered to me that she
still prays Catholic prayers and was this beautiful service catholic? And
really, “Catholic” means all-embracing. Universal. All-encompassing. So I tried
to explain my “Yes.” And we have promised to pray for each other and now dear
beautiful Simone has been added to my Fixed Prayers list.
And today I
read the High Priestly Prayers of Jesus, John 16 and 17, on the night he was
betrayed. Which bled into one very long sacrifice. So I read His prayers, His
very focused and intentional prayers, His prayers that we, His followers, would
be set apart, sanctified, in the truth. And that the love with which
the Father has loved the Son may be in us, and He, Jesus, may be in us.
And thus I lift
up my mind and body to the LORD, that I may accomplish with a free heart
those things which belong to His purpose; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who
lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for
ever. Amen.
And one of the Doolen
administrators posted on Facebook another prayer of sorts: I will not
yell in class. I will not throw things in the class. I will not have a temper
tantrum. I will always be good, because I am the teacher. I am the teacher. I
am the teacher.
And may the love with
which the Father has loved the Son be in me. And He, Jesus, may He be seen in
me today.
