Proper 23 (Year B 2021): Litany for Simple Teachings

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I like how Job, in this week’s text, longs for darkness. He says, “ If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!” (Job 23:17). As though the covering of darkness would be a balm, a peaceful comfort.

I have been known to retreat to the comfort of a dark room, when I have felt overwhelmed or overstimulated, when the work and the world become too much. I take solace in that Christ sympathizes with my weakness (Hebrews 4:15), and is approving of my rest. I take solace in these expressions of despair from characters in the texts; they are like me, limited in energy and understanding, in need of restoration.

Like every person who has ever lived, I am tempted to make too much of worldly possessions, of societal status, of achievements, of reputation. And thank goodness for the liberating example of Christ, who points me again and again, back to my true priorities: the thriving of my own soul, the being of help to the needy, the being present to the world’s beauty as well as its pain.

In a complex and overwhelming life, we are invited back to simplicity.


God, this life has never been simple.
We humans are complex creatures,
Capable of great suffering
And great love…

Proper 22 (Year B 2021): Litany for Inheriting All Things

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I took a few days off this week . Then this morning was reminded of the hymn _How Can I Keep From Singing_. Here are the traditional lyrics (although Audrey Assad has a lovely expanded version). But this stanza catches me: 

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his!
How can I keep from singing? 

These lyrics were already in my mind as I approached this week’s texts, and I see their echo and resonance in them. Particular places stand out in light of this idea:

  • Job in great suffering saying, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" (Job 2:10). 

  • The Psalmist “singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds” (Psalm 26:7).

  • The Psalmic prayer: “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…” (Psalm 8:6).

  • Christ, “whom GOD appointed heir of all things, through whom GOD also created the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2).

  • Christ’s words: “it is to such as these [little children] that the kingdom of God belongs” (Mark 10:14).

All things are mine since I am in Christ. All things are mine since I am part of God’s divine whole, my “true self, hidden with Christ in God.” All things are mine, since Christ is heir of all things and so, therefore am I.  All things are mine because I am the little child to whom the kingdom belongs. 

I am more and more convinced that the lesson here is to learn to live as though this is true. If I, as a person who claims follower-ship (followship, ha!) of Christ, believe this, then I cease to live in scarcity. I adopt a reality of Kin-dom abundance. And I, with even my small weight, shift the balance of power in the world by way of this non-grasping, generous, fulfilled posture. 


God, How can we keep from singing?
How can we keep our voices from echoing gratitude and wonder,
Or our hands from creating beauty and art,
Once we have come awake to your goodness; 
Which encompasses all things, 
Folding us in amongst the bounty of Christ’s riches …

Proper 21 (Year B 2021): Litany for Getting Real

This week’s texts are *gritty* - we get two heavy hitter First testament stories: Queen Esther going to bat for her people against evil Haman and winning like a boss. And Moses having an emotional breakdown because he just.can’t.handle.these complainy-pants people anymore. 

Then in the Gospel reading, we get Jesus laying down some real talk to John, et al. He says (using some striking metaphors involving intentional amputation of troublesome body parts) get rid of your ego. It’s holding you back and keeping you mired in suffering - in “hell” as the text puts it.  

Seriously, Jesus is not pulling any punches here: you’re better off drowning yourself than letting your gate-keepy ego create all these hierarchies and cliques (Mark 9:42). It’s enough to make a reader sweat. Harsh. 

Now, I don’t *actually* think that Jesus wants anyone to hack off their foot or gouge out their eye. I tend to think he’s using a rhetorical device, which is something most humans I know do fairly frequently. I also hear the humor in it. Like, dude, go ahead and maim yourself before you decide to create more hell on earth. 

Regardless of how you read it, it’s a pretty stark warning. Get rid of that which holds you back from life everlasting, and also harms others. And that which holds you back is usually your attachment to ego and hierarchy. Jesus is getting real. 

And Queen Esther is getting real, risking everything to save the literal necks of her marginalized community/family (Esther 7:2). It’s life or death and she is using every tool she has.

Moses is also getting real, admitting his exhaustion and consternation with the Hebrew people to God - he says he’d rather die than go on alone, as sole leader of a fractious and difficult group of people. Moses is STRESSED. And, in the story, God gives him an out, deciding to share the load of leadership with some 70 other elders (Numbers 11:25). 

I wonder what we need to get real about in our communities. I wonder if we might use these stories to inspire us to deeper authenticity and wholeness, honesty and humility. Here’s a prayerful place to start:


God, we are getting real with you:
Admitting our weaknesses, 
Our needs, 
Our discouragements, 
Our problems, 
Our exhaustion. …


Proper 20 (Year B 2021): Litany for Virtuous Living

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I wrote LITANY FOR AN EMPOWERED WOMAN for proper 20 of Year B in 2018. You can still find it here. 

This year I’m focusing on another theme present in the Lectionary texts, that of virtue. In this prayer, I’m taking all the virtues traditionally reserved for the “Proverbs 31 woman” and applying them to everyone. Which seems to me to be resonant with the overall message of the text, no exclusions or gender double-standards apply. 

The scriptures for this week offer us a blatant pathway to the good life: “happy are those…” it says. James wants his audience to “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” (James 3:13). And the Wisdom of Solomon text offers a contrasting example of a life of wickedness and injustice. 

In the gospel reading, Jesus gently rebukes the disciples for their ego-centered one-upmanship. He pulls them toward a more humble, heart-centered way: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."

So, without shame or apology, we admit that we want that good good life. That drawn-near-to-God life. That happy and delightful life. So we embrace these virtues as part of our true, God-imaged nature. 


God, we notice the virtues extolled in the sacred texts:
Wisdom (1), 
Kindness (1)
Generosity (2), 
Diligence (3)
Strength (4)...

Proper 19 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Welcoming Wisdom

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This week’s Lectionary texts introduce us to the aspect of God personified as Lady Wisdom: a bold, loud, generous feminine figure who offers her counsel to whomever will accept it, and her presence to whomever gives her hospitality.

Perhaps this will resonate with you: as I navigate the endlessly complex issues and problems of the day - pandemic response, racial reckoning and dismantling white supremacy, smashing the patriarchy, the current abortion uproar in Texas, pastoring people who are restructuring their faith paradigms, figuring out how to do good work without burning out, and so many other daily and far-reaching complexities - I NEED Mama Wisdom. I need her with me.

So I set my inner table as hospitably as ever I can. And I invite her in, intending never to refuse her counsel.


God, awaken our spiritual ears
To learn as people who are good at being taught, (1)
As people who are comfortable with admitting when we’re wrong,
As people who can confront our own biases,
As people capable of sitting with paradox,
As people who understand nuance….

Proper 18 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Solidarity and Service

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This week’s Lectionary texts are quite the kick in the pants. If you were asleep to the plight of the poor, WAKE UP, it tells us. If you’re unaware of the priorities of the Divine, be enlightened.


God, so many in our world are experiencing hardship and suffering,
From poverty, from environmental destruction,
From sickness, from conflicts outside our control,
From overwhelming grief, from trauma…..

Proper 17 (Year B, 2021): Litany for True Religion

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In addition to this new litany below, I’d like to point you toward my Litany for the Heart, which I wrote for Proper 17 of Year B in 2018, and still like a lot.

In this week’s Lectionary scriptures there is a distinct theme: DEFILEMENT. James is translated as using words like “sordidness” and “rank growth of wickedness,” along with an exhortation for “keep yourself unstained by the world.”

Mark tells a story of some Pharisees criticizing followers of Jesus for eating with “defiled” (unwashed) hands, which prompts Jesus to reflect on what *actually* might cause a person to be defiled or otherwise considered unclean.

James (according to translators) and Jesus (according to Mark, according to translators) don’t seem to agree on the particulars: James says that true religion is to care for orphans and widows (that would have been the poor and marginalized of his time and place) and stresses the importance of “keep[ing] oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). But Jesus says there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." Holy Moses! A contradiction!

Regardless of what we do with this seeming contradiction, I can accept James’ advice to be a “doer” not just a “hearer” of good news, and to turn my religion from abstract thought to concrete action (like, say, wearing a mask in a global pandemic). And I can accept Jesus’ counsel to give attention to my heart, my inner being, so that what comes out of me - what I DO - is good and just. True religion.


God, in this challenging and overwhelming time on earth,
We know that we must tend ourselves and our resources well.
We don’t want to get bogged down in frivolous disputes
Or distracted by what isn’t ours to manage.

Proper 16 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Home

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In the First Testament reading from 1 Kings, Solomon oversees a particularly sacred and solemn moment: bringing the ark of the covenant, Israel’s sacred symbol of the presence of God, into the newly built temple in Jerusalem. A cloud fills the temple when the ark is set in its place in the “Holy of Holies,” adding to the effect. And Solomon prays a heartfelt prayer for the presence and blessing of God to be with Israel. It is Israel’s effort to bring God home.

In the midst of this, Solomon generously prays that non-Israelite “foreigners” might know the blessing of God when they “pray toward this house.”

Of course, we know that God cannot be housed in one place. It’s only a symbol, a grand gesture, as is any sacred site or holy place. In his speech Solomon himself even admits this: “Even heavens and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” And the rest of the texts support this theme: “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.” Psalm 84.

This summer has been chaotic and multi-transitional for my family; we have spent these last months housed, but not at Home. And I’ve had to learn and re-learn a classic spiritual lesson: home is within.

The Divine is not housed in sticks and bricks. The Ground of Being does not rest on any earthly foundation. Like the Ark of the Covenant carried with poles, like a snail with a shell on its back, I carry Home within myself. To “abide in Christ” (John 6:56) is to abide everywhere, and nowhere, and in the secret place of soul.


God, we lift to you all of us who are, or who feel, homeless:
Spiritually homeless,
Politically homeless,
Cast out from families or communities,
Refugees forced from homes,
And those who are in need of physical housing.*….

Proper 14 (Year B 2021): Litany for Re-Training Ourselves

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In the First Testament readings, we glimpse Elijah and David in unique moments of deep grief. David weeps for the loss of his son Absalom. Elijah is in despair, such that he longs for death, and running for his life into the wilderness, where receives miraculous provision: bread.

In this week’s gospel text from John 6, Jesus continues his thoughts on being bread. I’m particularly struck (again) by him saying: “whoever believes has eternal life.” It’s so radical! It’s not “whoever behaves.” It’s not “whoever gives assent to this list of theological doctrines.” It’s whoever believes. In other words, whoever is willing to assume the consciousness of eternal life, eternity, the eternal NOW… whoever is convinced that God’s Community (Kingdom, Kin-dom) is right now. Whoever can perceive their own self in light of Love. Whoever knows in their bones that they have, they ARE, the bread!

The whole gamut of human emotions is present in this week’s texts, and here is Jesus saying (my paraphrase, obviously): Don’t complain. I’m the living bread and so are you. Be satisfied and live as though it is so. Live in this eternal satisfaction.

It's safe to say I get pretty jazzed about this. It’s safe to say my understanding of these kinds of statements made by The Christ has come a LONG way. Here is Jesus understanding his own true identity: God in flesh, the character of God made tangible here in 3D; and offering that shared identity, inheritance, belonging, to anyone willing to take it on too.

The text from Ephesians gives us a glimpse into how Paul imagines people who have taken on this consciousness might behave: truthful, able to be angry yet self-controlled, kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, focused on and magnetizing beauty rather than evil. It’s a really lovely vision of how to live that we get here from him.

What if we could re-train how we think about ourselves? What if we could learn to live as though we have access to everything that Christ has access to? I think the world would inevitably be different and better. I think we would come into spiritual power that would spill over into all aspects of our lives. We would start to live Saint Paul’s glorious and lovely description of us as “imitators of God.”


God, we want so much to be able to shift our consciousness
Into the consciousness that Christ shares:
But our beliefs about ourselves so often hold us back.
We have trouble remembering Christ in us….

Proper 13 (Year B 2021): Litany for Getting Full

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Hi friends. I’m in a particularly rough summer, dealing with some of the worst anxiety of my life and struggling to find the creative spark. It’s coming later in the week these days. I’m grateful for this weekly practice of Lectio Divina with the week’s Lectionary, and tapping into goodness that I always seem to find here, even if I’d rather post these to you on Tuesday rather than Thursday. Thanks for being here with me.

I’m noting this week’s Lectionary passages from 2 Samuel 11, Exodus 16, and John 6 most particularly today.

King David had an entire kingdom available to him, all the women and sexual pleasure he could imagine, and yet he couldn’t be satisfied; he had to steal more for himself, raping Bathsheba and murdering her husband to gain ownership of her.

The Hebrews in the Desert (Exodus 12) couldn’t get full on plain old heavenly manna. They needed more to be satisfied. More miracles were necessary to fill their bellies up.

In John 6, Jesus has just finished feeding a crowd of people a miraculous meal at which they could eat to fullness, and a little while later they are still chasing him around hoping for satisfaction. He tells them “I am the bread of life…” (John 6:35).

As my own interpretation of the sayings of Jesus has evolved, I’ve come to recognize the invitation inside of all his statements. When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” I interpret that to mean that I too can come to understand myself as being the bread of life; that I too can come to find satisfaction, full-bellied and abundant, with the resources innately available to me. The “true bread from heaven” is within me as well, waiting to be acknowledged and accessed.

In my own life I struggle with finding contentment, with being satisfied. Unmanaged, I tend to focus on what I regret, on the choice I didn’t make. I recognize this tendency in myself, and it’s part of why gratitude practice is so profoundly necessary for me. Appreciation for *what is* must be part of my grounding practice. It helps me remember that I *am full* and that the bread of heaven is within me.

Here is a prayer for us as we work on these skills of remembering and accessing the bread of life, as modeled by the Christ, that is already within us. Hopefully it will be good medicine for our longing. 


God, most of us go our whole lives thinking we are empty
And can only be filled by something outside of us.
We search outside of ourselves, inattentive to the Divine within,
Looking to meet our needs by inferior means;
Only to find ourselves thirsty again,
Hungry for the next junk meal.

Proper 11 (Year B): Litany for Catching a Break

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My family and I have been in the process of moving houses this summer - not once, but twice. First to a temporary house, then to a permanent one later. Moving can be relentless, exhausting, ungrounding. You sometimes feel like you can’t catch a break: there is always more to do, more problems to solve, more children to comfort (in my case), more lost things to find. For me it’s the capstone to a relentless and exhausting season that started with Covid in March of 2020. So I’m late with the litany this week. Sorry.

And I’m taking some comfort in this week’s Gospel reading. Jesus notices the exhaustion felt by himself and the apostles. “He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” So they all sail away in a boat to try to catch a break. And even then, they can’t. People - beloved people with real and profound needs both spiritual and physical - follow them (Mark 6: 55,56).

“[W]herever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” If Jesus needs a break, in his humanity and therefore limited physical energy, he has to WORK for it - carve it out, prioritize it, make it happen. At least, as I imagine. I’m so grateful for the solidarity here in this text. For the exhausted and run-down. The weary and overdrawn. The ones who are trying to pour from the dregs of a cup. For me and you. Jesus meets us here, where we’re just trying to catch a break.

God, the pace of our lives is sometimes faster than we can keep;
The needs of those around us are sometimes more than we can handle;
The work before us sometimes seems unending;
And the chaos around us is sometimes overwhelming.
We long to pause, to rest.
We thirst for renewal….

Proper 10, Year B: Litany for the Called

In the First Testament reading from Amos 7, we encounter Amos - a “herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees” turned prophet, as he’s being rebuked by the king’s priests for prophesying doom upon the nation. They don’t want to hear it. Go away and prophesy somewhere else, they say (Amos 7:12). And Amos explains: he didn’t ask for this job. He just woke up one day and it was there for him to do. He remembered his calling; God reminded him.

In this week’s Gospel reading from Mark 6 we get the story of how John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod, at the request of his mistress. Another prophet down, another truth-teller silenced - John, who had been awake to his calling for much of his life.

Remember in last week’s gospel, when Jesus comments poignantly on the way prophets are routinely dishonored by their own communities? If we needed more evidence of this, here it is in these readings.

I’m thinking about us: people who are called to bring a message to the world, or a work of healing, some art, or to hold a particular space. I tend to think we are all here for a reason, that our special presence on the earth is necessary, and that part of our work here is to realize our true selves (hidden with Christ in God) and wake up to our calling. That’s my personal belief, so take it as you will.

This litany is for us. The ones who are awakening to our particular calling and authentic selves. 

(If you would rather utilize a different prayer this week, here is Litany for Dancing, written for Proper 10 in 2018. )



God, we know that living an authentic life, 
Realizing our calling 
Awakening to our True Selves, 
Is risky business. …


Proper 9 (Year B): Litany for the Powers That Be

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Here is my litany from this Lectionary cycle in 2018: Litany for the Prophets

This week’s Lectionary texts are replete with imagery of power, rulers, strongholds…. And their polarity: weakness. Vulnerability, if you will. 

The First Testament reading gives an account of the power of David during his rule, reigning over Israel from a mighty stronghold. The Psalms speak of God enthroned in the heavens, or in “his holy city,” and beseech God for mercy and victory, which is associated with love. Like: if God loves us God will give us victory over enemies.

In the epistle, Paul ruminates on the paradox of strength in weakness. And in the gospel reading, Jesus comments on the power and honor given to, and withheld from, prophets, instructing the disciples not to carry anything with them that might signify prestige, influence, honor, wealth or power. He makes sure they go about empty-handed - no supplies or weapons - powerless except for their Spirit access. 

Here Christ seems to repudiate any reliance on conventional forms of power. And Paul seems to catch his vibe, producing the iconic line so many of us can recite without thinking: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

The power of Jesus here, and the kind of power his ancestor David wields, seem to be at odds. This litany leans into these themes.

God, we are watching how power plays out in this world,
How many people are hungry for it, 
How many people are utterly without worldly power, 
How many are entranced by it. …

Proper 8 (Year B): Litany for Absolute Love

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Here is my litany for Proper 8, Year B from 2018: Litany for What Ails Us

The First Testament reading in this week’s Lectionary is David’s lament for the passing of Saul and Jonathan. In David’s relationship with Jonathan, he experiences something new to him, a new frontier of love. He says of Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Blowing past what he’d previously experienced. Hm. 

The Psalms and Lamentations texts are meditations on the “steadfast love” of God, even in the midst of life’s most difficult experiences. St. Paul extols the generous nature of Christ’s Love in the epistle. And Christ himself epitomizes the healing and restorative nature of Love in the gospel text. 

We might read these texts with questions in mind: what is Love? What is the nature of Love? Where is Love found? Where does Love come from? 

It is such a big idea that it is unsayable. Unwriteable. But we get these hints: relationality, restoration, healing, generosity, unceasing, steadfast, eternal, abundant. 

And this: whatever we *think* love is, it is more. 

I have more hunches about Love: that it is the sum of everything. That it is the “ground of being.” That it’s that elusive thing our physicists dance around when they’re trying to figure out dark matter and dark energy. Anyway, that’s why I’m still writing prayers about it - because as trite as it might sound, I think it’s the most important thing, and in fact, it’s everything. It’s God. It’s us. It’s life. I’ll never be done writing and thinking about it. 


God, we are learning about Love,
Setting aside all our old assumptions about it, 
Practicing and playing with it, 
And re-imagining ourselves in light of it.


Proper 7, Year B: Litany for Hearts Wide Open

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Here is my previous litany from 2018, Year B, Proper 7: Litany for the Desperate

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we are remembering. Re-membering. Putting the body of knowledge back together again. Becoming conscious members once again of a Community. We forget that we are part of the body of God. We forget that our true selves are “hidden with Christ in God.” And that DOESN’T MEAN that our true selves are hidden from us or inaccessible to us. It means we are enfolded in God, God being all around everywhere available. Waiting to be remembered.

(I’m using words to try to express a fairly profound spiritual truth, which is always tricky business.)

My point is: I’m thinking (and learning from many spiritual teachers) that it is our work here to re-member ourselves as parts of Christ/God on earth. And then to live out that essential truth in our thoughts, words, and actions.

And then Saint Paul speaks so beautifully about the paradoxes we are muddling through here on earth, and how we are learning to recognize our true selves among all this contrast. He says: “Our hearts are wide open.” Which I take as a shorthand way of expressing that our hearts are mirroring God’s heart as part of God’s heart. We assume the wide-open-hearted posture of God toward all beings, toward ourselves, toward each other. When we can do this, we’ve come home to our true nature and the world will reverberate with our home-coming.

God, we are here in this realm of contrast, relativity, and duality,
Learning to recognize ourselves -
You in us, us in you.
You flung open your heart to us!

Proper 6 (Year B): Litany for Perceiving Beyond Appearance



As I read through this week’s Lectionary passages, I’m reflecting on God’s advice to Samuel as he has to pick yet another king for the fractious Hebrew nation, after Saul’s kingship turns disastrous: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7).

This theme of perceiving beyond appearance is reinforced in the Ezekiel: “I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree…” and in the 2 Corinthians: “we regard no one from a human point of view”. And finally it’s there in the words of Christ in Mark 4 regarding the Mustard Seed: “smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs…”

Jesus says in the beatitudes: don’t judge. These texts bring us back to that non-judgement, that call to humility. Remember: you have no idea what you’re looking at. You have no idea the true nature of the person you’re talking to, beyond the fact that they are innately beloved and part of the Imago Dei. You have no idea what this seed can become. You have no idea what diamonds lie behind these wounds.

God, we look at tiny seeds,
Which appear insignificant, easily lost,
With no notion of the potential they hold, or what they might become,
Given the right nurturing:
Soil, water, sunlight,
A recipe for greatness (1).

Trinity Sunday (Year B, 2021): Litany for the Song of Oneness

I’m a fan of the Trinitarian theme: disparate entities forming a whole; separate consciousnesses merging; individuals (gloriously individuated) voluntarily partnering toward Oneness. It puts me in mind of Saint Paul’s words in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 1: “You who were once far off have been brought near...” (Ephesians 2:13, INCL) and “[i]n Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth… and all things hold together in Christ” (Colossians 1:15,17). 

I get the idea that Christ has the ability to hold all this together because he’s practiced the skill in the context of the Trinity. 

But this idea isn’t necessarily coming from this week’s Lectionary texts. These particular passages are extolling a fearsom and glorious “LORD” in the Isaiah and Psalm, who “shakes the wilderness; and highlighting a separation between flesh and spirit in the epistle - “for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live..” Where is the Trinitarian Oneness here? 

My guess is its up to us, up to the work we do here as reflections of Christ and the Godhead, gathering up disparate elements and melding them; taking the circuitry of body and spirit and re-connecting them. We form the connective tissue that binds heaven to earth. We do the work of wholeness-making because we are made in the image of the Christ - a universal gravity holding all things together. In Christ we make cohesive wholes out of fractious fractions. 

The story of the Trinity is written inside every human body. Two disparate, separate cells find a place of quiet warmth; they relinquish their individuality to become a Third. Father, Mother, Child. Creator, Spirit, Body. Breath, Dust, and Embodiment. Heaven, Earth, and We-who-straddle-worlds. 

This week’s litany draws from the Lectionary passages for Trinity Sunday, Year B; namely the Isaiah 6 and Psalm 29, plus a bit of extra lagniappe I threw in. 

God, we turn our attention again to the imagery of the Trinity, 
Of Three-in-One, 
Of Divine wholeness, holiness, sacredness, 
Oneness, togetherness.


Pentecost Year B (2021): Litany for Sighs Too Deep For Words

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The texts for the Day of Pentecost are rich with imagery, metaphor, and narrative. There is a persistent theme of “now and not yet”  - the work is complete but has yet to be fully revealed. The Spirit is available but we have yet to harness it’s full power. The earth dwells in perfection but yearns for the day when all creatures are truly free in body.

The story of Pentecost in Acts is powerful and curious, a story of equality and inclusion, of accessibility, simplicity, and choice. In Acts 2 the Apostle Peter quotes the Prophet Joel’s inclusive and egalitarian vision of God’s Kin-dom, saying “'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

Everyone who wants in is in, status notwithstanding.

From Resurrection to Pentecost we leap from awakening to consciousness, from believing to seeing. I’ve tried to do the practically-impossible here: to capture our collective wordless longing in words.This litany accompanies the text, drawing from the Ezekiel, Acts, and Romans passages.


God, we are waiting, waiting,
For the redemption of these physical bodies (1);
Even as we know they are already redeemed,
Still we wait for the fullness of time.

Easter 7, Year B (2021): Litany for Straddling the Worlds

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In this week's text from John 17, Jesus is praying for his people. The reading seems like he's praying for his own specific group with whom he's spent the last several years leading up to the crucifixion. But we receive this insider glimpse into his mind - how he thinks about these people he loves, the responsibility he feels for their growth and well-being. This prayer is pastoral, but it's also... familial. Like, brotherly: 'listen pops I tried really hard to keep the kids out of trouble...'

There's also an aspect of it that feels sortof like a personal pep-talk - Jesus knows what's coming will be hard, but he's come this far and he's gearing up for the next phase, cataloguing his successes and mourning his losses (Judas). He leans hard on themes of unity, Oneness, and of belonging, not to paradigms of the world but to the paradigm of Heaven.

I find myself in deep gratitude for this peek into the cry of Jesus’ heart today; how human it is, how vulnerable. We see him, not as a victor (yet), but as a human person on the cusp of literal crucible. I resonate with this Jesus, and I love him - the one who goes to suffering with his beloveds on his mind. And I like to think that when he prayed for them he prayed for me.

Also, I’m seeing how Jesus is praying them right into a new world, a new way of being. And I echo those prayers for protection, for help, for Oneness, for living with one foot in heaven and the other navigating life on earth, straddling two worlds.

God, as Jesus prays for his group of beloved friends,
We pray for ourselves and each other:
Protect us, God (1);
Bring us to an understanding of Oneness;
Make our joy complete (2);
Fill us with truth (3)….

Easter 6, Year B (2021): Litany for Minding Our Own Business

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This litany draws from this week's Lectionary. Here is the one from 2018 if you care to use it.

A major lesson for me over the last few years has been around themes of minding my own business, managing my mind, and refraining from trying to "fix" or change other people. I am the only person whose mind I can change. My job is to do my own spiritual work and the work that the Spirit puts before me to do. My job is to love unconditionally and to forgive everything. By healing myself I heal the world.

This is both liberating AND a hard habit to break. Especially if, like me, you were raised to engage in Christian culture wars, to "win" (arguments, victories, souls, etc.), to be right and righteous, to "defend the faith." But the more I look at the life of Jesus, and listen to the promptings of the Spirit within me, the more deeply I understand the non-defensive, non-judgmental posture of the Christ. I think of him referring to the Pharisees as "white-washed tombs," so focused on the behaviors of other people and disregarding the state of their own hearts. He went to a whole death non-defensively, and got up preaching peace and forgiveness. Imagine it.


God, everything you give,
You give freely.
You make room for everyone who wants into your community,
Everyone who wants to abide in love …