pastor prayers

A few weeks ago, I was picking my son up from camp and uncharacteristically arrived a few minutes early. It was the last day of camp for the week, and as part of their closing ritual they were giving out awards to each kid based on the most positive spin on their character. The formula was to describe all the characteristics, then pause dramatically before saying the name of the child.

The first child to get an award was lauded as “the most calm, collected, and thoughtful helper of all, who was always there with a considerate word for fellow campers and for the counselors.” When they said the name, up popped this skinny little five year-old girl, whose shoes looked like they could swallow her toothpick legs, and whose glasses were teetering heavily on her delicate face. She was adorable in the way that made me want to be able to follow her around through her childhood just to make sure no one is mean to her.

As soon as she heard her name, she exclaimed “Me? Really?” in the most sincere and genuine way, and turned bright red with what looked like a mixture of pride, embarrassment and shock. She marched up to get her construction-paper award, and on the way back, shaking her head, exclaimed with complete sincerity: “I had no idea I was that special!”

And then my eyes began to leak.

Eternal spirit, creator of all,

help us to nurture in each person the deep and unshakable understanding of the blessing of their being. Let none ever doubt that they are that special, that loved, that magnificent. Let the truth of it be known at our core, far past our culture’s thin veneer of meaningless affirmations. Help us to know the real thing by its failure to be drawn in to pettiness or self-aggrandizement, by its constant reminder that the God that makes one of us beloved makes us all beloved. May the power of that be-loved-ness be a source of great strength, so that we might meet its demand that we work for justice. May it fuel our courage to live and work for and with others. May we find the path to peace by making our home in the landscape of compassion.

Amen.

Youth group anchored me in my teen years. In the midst of the daily discovery of how cruel the world could be (also known as high school), my church youth group was a singular place of earnest engagement. We cared deeply about true inclusion, explored what it meant to do the right thing, and developed the skills to work cooperatively to build community. Also, many of us had mad crushes on each other. The latter kept us attending when we were failing miserably at our loftier goals, and all in all the balance served us well.

I’m completely impressed with the youth in our church and their journey through our coming of age program this year. They are thoughtful, articulate, brave and kind and have forged a tight community across many differences in background, ability, personality and theology. Witnessing their developing selves — I’ve known most of them for the last four years, so from about age 10 to 14 — I am struck by just how precarious and how precious this journey of personhood is. From the distance of age, it’s incredible to see the different ways qualities like resilience can shine from a person. One offers a joke at every turn, eager to put others at ease and move things forward. Another is sure to align herself with the most powerful of the girls in the room for cover from the real or imagined possibility of exclusion. Yet another wraps himself in a shroud of mystery and intellect, seemingly impervious to the petty judgments of adolescents. We send them all forth with every wish that they will continue to grow into the selves they are meant to be, and for some reason I feel much more protective of these almost-adults than I do of the smaller children in our midst.

For children, disappointments usually center around learning the basics of how the world works: Lick too hard at the ice cream cone from one side, and it will pop off the other; you won’t necessarily get another. Scrapes and bruises hurt at the time and heal before you know it. People say unkind things, and sometimes you might too. The lessons aren’t always easy, but the exposure to them is character-building and forms perspective that will serve them well.

In adolescence, though, there is a greater vulnerability. The stakes are higher now, and their heartbreaks and disappointments from here on out have a different kind of consequence, will carry a different weight when it comes to shaping who they will be. Parents of adolescents sense that vulnerability and know it’s there beneath the too-common surliness, snottiness, or dismissiveness that helps their children develop their own identities and stirs in the parents a whole new layer of vulnerability of their own.

We gather in worship to celebrate the faith statements and the journey of exploration the youth have begun in coming of age. We all get a window into the powerful stuff that is moving in and through them, and for a moment, we all know the beauty of vulnerability. We find our strength in that fragile place, where the God of mystery and hope plants her seed.

Creator, protector, lover of all life. I come to you today more aware than usual of a peculiar kind of vulnerability, and a remarkable sense of connection that comes with and from it. A terrible accident has struck a family I care about. Another tragedy has befallen a family I don’t know.

A father is struck by a storm grate while driving along his morning commute, and a family is sent reeling with questions about his health and their own future. A mother is found with stab wounds and her two children stabbed to death not long after she lost her job and reported wanting to end her own life. These are the dramatic ledes that bring to surface the tenderness of all our lives, the delicate dance we do to keep them going, to keep ourselves together in the midst of circumstances within and more often beyond our control. When there are people we’ve brought into the world whose care is our greatest vocation, we do well most days not to dwell too much on how great a responsibility it is. We couldn’t really get through the days if we let ourselves take in its depth each moment. But it is there, in the shadows of our awareness, palpable if usually unspoken.

Help us to hold our own places in this fragile web, and to keep faith in your care for us and to feel your presence with us even when the twists of fate make it seem comically absurd to believe it. Let us feel your presence in the community of human care. Let us be attentive to our everyday movements of grace, that we might come to our times of crisis with ample touchstones of sacred presence. We need those memories in our bodies and souls when when our lives seem as precarious as dandelion tufts balanced on the razor-thin edge between divine and doomed. Let ours be the breath that, when we fall, blows our lives toward the divine.

Amen.

God of the in-between territory, where human needs converge and sometimes clash, guide me through these tender times.

I’ve reluctantly gotten used to the referee role of parenting, mediating disputes over sharing and hitting, tattling and bad words. I already pray daily not to be too shrill, and not to be too indulgent, and not to say things that will come back and bite me when my son tries to apply the same rules to me, and generally not to screw my child up any more than is necessary. But now we’re in the emotional zone that takes it to the next level. We’re into the disputes in which no one is wrong, but the clash of differing needs can be devastating.

One child wants a hug and another doesn’t like to be hugged. One child needs quiet when another wants to have a conversation. One is feeling gregarious and goofy when another wants to concentrate. They happen to be getting together to play when any of these things occur, and the tears and anger are like every volcano in the world erupting at once while the deadliest tsunami and the most forceful hurricane batter our shores. Help me to know how best to communicate your love for each child and their bodily desires. Let me honor their need to be cared for and help them know their friend cares for them even if they don’t understand how to show it. Help me to convey in ways a four year old can understand that no one is bad for having another need, and that when we care about someone we can allow space without judgment. And we learn to share, when things are a little less hectic, what was happening for us, so that we may know each other better and thereby honor each others’ humanity.

I know it takes a whole lot more words and understanding than an upset four year old can muster. I still want to offer the clues now so when the mind is ready to get it, it will not seem like a stretch to believe: Sometimes no one is wrong. We’re all beloved. What we need is what we need and our job is just to communicate it respectfully, lovingly to the people we care about. Because that’s where we get to know you best, god, when we take those risks and learn how you’re present in the mysterious other.

I pray this earnestly, and wish I could be hilarious and clever about it. Most of the time I’m pretty tired, and a little harried, and far short of possessing the patience it all takes. As I watch this unfold daily for my son I see nothing short of a glimpse into the lesson the world of humanity needs to learn, and needs to learn desperately. If we can get it well, if we can start to get it a little more right than we’ve gotten it all this time, there’s this glimmer of peace that’s visible for our world. My yearning for it brings me to tears.

God on the narrow bridge between I and thou, help me follow that yearning, and hold on to hope, and offer examples of forgiveness, and kindness, and your eternal embrace to the people (little or big) in my care, for life or just for a day. Amen.