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Easter in the Belly of Nothingness

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Easter, Good Friday, prayers, Walter Brueggemann

Jesus' body

Here is a timely prayer by Walter Brueggemann from his book Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon Press 2008).

Easter in the Very Belly of Nothingness

Death will be all right for us when it comes. But dying is another matter — so slow, so painful, so humiliating.

Death will be a quick turn, the winking of an eye, but dying turns and twists and waits and teases.

We have not died, but we know about dying: We watch the inching pain of cancer, the oozing ache of alienation, the tears of stored up hurt.

We can smell the dying of bombs and shells,  of direct hit and collateral damage, of napalm spread thin and even of cities turned craters, of Agent Orange that waits years to show, and lives turned to empty stare.

We watch close or distant; we brace and stiffen, and grow cynical or uncaring.

And death wins — we, robbed of vitality, brought low by failed hope, lost innocence, emptied childhood, and stillness. 

We keep going, but barely; we gather at the grave, watching the sting and the victory of dread.

But you stir late Saturday; we gather early Sunday with balm and embracing, close to the body. waiting for the smell but not; dreading the withered site… but not; cringing love lost… but not here.

Not here… but risen, gone, awakened, alive!

The new creation stirs beyond the weeping women; O death… no sting! O grave… no victory! O silence… new song! O dread… new dance! O tribulation… now overcome!

O Friday God — Easter the failed city, Sunday the killing fields. And we, we shall dance and sing, thank and praise, into the night that holds no more darkness.

 

A Friday Prayer by Walter Brueggemann

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Good Friday, prayers, Walter Brueggemann

Crucified_Christ_with_Virgin_St_JohnI 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.

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