Almighty
and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you,
so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may
be wholly yours, utterly
dedicated to you; and then use
us, we pray, as you will, and
always to your glory and the
welfare of your people; through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
(BCP, p. 832)
This prayer has been on my heart and my mind a
bunch lately. Not only is it the one
we’ve used to help in our reimagining Advent’s voyage with God in the year to
come, it was also used as the postcommunion (yes, that’s how you spell it) prayer at the Service of Repentance
and Reconciliation hosted by Bishop Wright on October 22 at the Cathedral of
St. Philip.
I’ll admit to the collect’s comprehensiveness and
thus it’s capacity for use in multiple applications. I’m also OK with saying that what Bishop
Wright was about that night was different from our use, although not
entirely. Suffice it to say the prayer
works for both of us.
In the case of Bishop Wright’s use, the prayer
encouraged those gathered that night to move into a time and place we are still
learning to describe. His sermon -- as
I’ve already said, “one of his best” – was a very good beginning toward
reinterpreting racism as it has evolved through these last 50+ years.
In our case we’ve articulated an understanding of Advent’s
movement into doing what God is asking of us that includes more collaboration with our neighbors.
But instead of jumping into “collaboration” maybe we should first
talk with our neighbors about neighborhoods and neighborliness. It might be
exactly what we can do best at this point: host a gathering for sharing, for
telling stories, and most of all for listening.
A time may come for us to
extend our Bishop’s call for repentance and reconciliation specifically through
Advent’s collaborations but for now let’s ask God to so draw our hearts, so guide
our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills and see what kind
of neighbors we can become.
No comments:
Post a Comment