A prayer offered while thinking about life with the emerging/postmodern church: (sung very loudly in front of a candle, daringly lit in the midst of a very messy and papery desk).

You can sing too. Click here for piano accompaniment.)

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Some time spent with Jesus and his life.
The secret’s out.

On a day of personal mourning, a boquet of prayers for peace. Here’s my favorite:

A Jain Prayer

Lead me from death to Life, from falsehood to Truth.
Lead me from despair to Hope, from fear to Trust.
Lead me from hate to Love, from war to Peace.
Let Peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.
- Satish Kumar

And a closing thought from Sacred Space:

“In these early weeks of the year the scripture readings open our minds to see that God’s saving plan is universal: The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. …

God, we are your church, a people on the way. We have a history, a long past of darkness and of light. Give us now, we pray you, a new future, and call us away from the certainties, the riches of this world in which we shelter, safely captive. Rather make us poor and insecure, displaced and free, so that we may once more hear your Gospel and follow your son.

Help us, Lord, to reach out to one another, and to remember that Christ is our peace, and that he has broken down the barriers that divide us.”

So, can i get a witness?