I enjoy reading the prayers of Walter Brueggemann. They help to give me a voice to talk to God in a profoundly honest way, about things that I often do not think to pray about. Here is a prayer from his book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (Fortress Press, 2003); the title of the prayer is “Friday is Your Day of Entry” (page 125)

Giver of good gifts, we give you hearty thanks…that it is Friday.

We say, without guilt, “Thank God It’s Friday!”

Partly, as we come to Friday, along with out culture, we are into week-ends of self-indulgence. We have worked hard and are ready to take a break and rest from our labors. We wait for a moment when we need not pay attention to the steady demands with which we live, caring not at all for the world, or for our neighbor, or our duty.

Give us the mercy to move Friday beyond “the week-end.” Partly as we move to Friday we are ready for Sabbath rest, when we rest as we imagine you to rest. It is clear to us in our best pondering that our lives are made for rest and not for work. So give us the simplicity to put ourselves down in your rest, whereby we may receive back our true selves by drawing close to you.

But mainly, as we come to Friday, we know in our deepest places that Friday is your day of entry into the hurt and hate of the world, your day of bottomless weakness where we have seen you allied with the world in its deepest disorder. We know you to be a Friday God without the honors of omnipotence. And so we pray that you will “Friday us” into the very weakness where we may receive our new life from you.

We pray in the name of your Friday Child. Amen.