Proper 28 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Faith in Spite of Chaos

The bulk of my work can be accessed via Patreon
Patreon helps me make this work sustainable.
Thanks for reading and subscribing.
You can find archived litanies here, and purchase my book here.
Attribution guidelines are here.


See also: “Litany for You’re Enough a.k.a. Litany for Hannah” from 2018 for Proper 28 of Ordinary Time. 

This week’s texts come with a strong sense of the temporality of our time here on the earth. The passage from Daniel 12 has an apocalyptic feel, and Christ’s words in Mark 13 have been fodder for many an end-times enthusiast and fear-monger. 

But when I read the Psalm…

“I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

...I feel the answering steadfastness of the Divine. 

We may hear of wars and rumors of even more wars, we may be afraid that our society is crumbling before our eyes, we may be staring catastrophic climate emergency in the face. I hear Jesus’ frank admission, with an accompanying shrug and an incline of the head, that we are going to encounter a lot of chaos here. But we who share in the Divine Image and Presence (all of us who are willing and awake to it) “rest secure.” We don’t need to be ok to be ok. We are still ok, still safe, still cared-for, even when the world is burning down. There is nowhere else to go but the love of God. 

The writer of Hebrews invites us to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” And these passages provoke me to greater faith and commitment to doing those good deeds. 

God, when the world is burning down, 
When we are reaping the rewards of avarice and injustice,
When we are beset by calamity,
When we are at odds with our neighbors,
When our society’s obsessions and prejudices are revealed
When nature and history are rebuking us…


Pentecost (Year C): Litany for Oneness

Hi! As you may have noticed,
I’ve moved much of my work over to Patreon.
This is part of my effort to make 2019 a #yearofwritingsustainably
So thanks for reading and subscribing.


The Day of Pentecost in the Church Calendar marks the beginning of a new season: The season of Pentecost. From Eastertide and resurrection, to Ascension (the feast of Ascension was this past week), and now to the revealing (in a more public way than was revealed in John 20) of the Spirit and the spirit's loving essence of inclusion and enfolding of many into divine Oneness. Just exactly as Jesus had prayed in last week's Lectionary Gospel passage: "that they may be one."

This litany is drawn from John 14 and Psalm 104, Lectionary selections for Pentecost, Year C.

God, you have always been showing us what Oneness looks like
First in Nature.
Then in Christ.
Now in the Spirit.