Spirit of God, as you hovered over the waters at the start of the creation, hover over the waterways of our world through navigation, water treatment, purification, desalination, and sewage treatment to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases. We pray for the safe passage of goods and supplies as nations use maritime waterways, where wars […]
I Was Hungry and You Gave Me Food: A Matthew 25 Prayer for the Least of These (November 23, 2023)
During a week when many ponder the end of the liturgical year and may follow the lectionary reading from Matthew 25: 31-46, “Judgement of the Nations,” we pray: For I was hungry and you gave me food. . . The world mourns the loss of United States humanitarian and political organizer Rev. Arthur Simon, founder […]
Give Us Our Daily Bread: A Prayer for Landslides in India, Famine, and Chile’s Disappeared (August 31, 2023)
Great Mystery, We offer these prayers. We are amazed to hear of a meteorite coming from interstellar space, found in the Pacific Ocean, and discovered to be formed of an unknown alloy of metals. Forger of rock and mountain, waterfall and volcano we are in awe of this world and beyond. And we extract its […]
A Wideness in God’s Mercy: A Confession for the Global Water Crisis (March 23, 2023)
World in Prayer- Thursday, 23 March 2023 “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea”… so goes the old hymn. And we, your created ones, created to be co-creators with you, cling to this truth, Gracious One, often as a way of letting ourselves off the hook for our failure to […]
The Universe Sings of Your Glory: A COP27 Prayer for Lake Chad and the Amazon (November 17, 2022)
God in heaven, we pray for the successful implementation of the carbon reduction discussions at the COP27 Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. As the conference gained international attention from November 7-18, may we be mindful of the communities that continue to bear daily struggles as a result of environmental challenges forced by climate change: for […]
Let All Who Thirst Come to the Water: A Prayer in a Time of Drought (September 8, 2022)
Holy One, there is a song haunting me lately. An evocative melody. A single soprano invokes, “Oh let all who thirst, let them come… to the water.” The first time I heard it, I wept. And lately I hear it often. Unsummoned, it echoes within my soul; a lament in layers of drought. Source of […]
Sing a New Church Into Being: A Prayer for Human Dignity, Melting Permafrost, and Water (January 13, 2022)
As the scheduled writer for this week, I, like so many others, am finding life in its beauty and complexity challenging, dispiriting, frustrating, with more questions than answers and often don’t want to hear what I think God is trying to say to me as the way forward: more of the same old, same old…? […]
Praying With Psalm 116: A Pandemic of Grief, Lost Work, and Famine of Biblical Proportions (April 23, 2020)
Praying with Psalm 116 in this time of pandemic* We love you, O God, because you have heard the voice of our supplications, because you have inclined your ear to us whenever we called upon you. (Psalm 116, v. 1, adapted) Because you have been faithful to us, O God, from time immemorial, bringing us […]
As a Mother Comforts Her Child: Prayers for Ebola in DR Congo and Drought in India and Zimbabwe (July 18, 2019)
As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:13 Mother God, How grateful we are, Lord, for your constant presence in our lives as we walk as little children on this earth. As we look around this world and see the awful things which happen […]
On God Alone I Wait Silently: Prayers for Wildfires, Water Shortages and Refugees (August 2, 2018)
On God alone I wait silently; God my deliverer, God my strong tower. Paraphrase from Ps. 62, John L. Bell* When all efforts have been made to cope with natural disasters: the earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia; the wildfires in California, USA, Sweden, Siberia, Russian Federation, Greece, water shortages in Yemen, the UK, Syria, Kenya; On God alone I wait silently; God my deliverer, God […]