Sunday, August 23, 2009

We are Ready to Listen

Healing, sovereign God,
overmatch our resistant ears
with your transforming speech.
Penetrate our jadeness and fatigue.
Touch our yearnings by your words.
Through your out-loudness, draw us closer to you.
We are ready to listen.
Amen.

Walter Brueggemann, from Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth

Another prayer from Walter Brueggemann

You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us.
You have committed yourself to us.
You have said yes to us in creation,
yes to us in our birth,
yes to us in our baptism,
yes to us in our awakening this day.

But we are of another kind,
more accustomed to “perhaps, maybe, we’ll see,’
left in wonderment and ambiguity.

We live our lives not back to your yes,
but out of our endless “perhaps.”


So we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you,
yes with our time,
yes with our money,
yes with our sexuality,
yes with our strength and with our weakness,
yes to our neighbor,
yes and no long “perhaps.”

In the name of your enfleshed yes to us,
even Jesus who is our yes into your future. Amen.


From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, Walter Brueggemann

And Then You

A very good prayer I just read on the web

And Then You

We arranged our lives as best we can,
to keep your holiness at bay,
with our pieties,
our doctrines,
our liturgies,
our moralities,
our secret ideologies,
Safe, virtuous, settled,
And they you -
you and your dreams,
you and your visions,
you and your purposes,
you and your commands,
you and our neighbors,
We find your holiness not at bay,
but probing, pervading,
insisting, demanding.
And we yield, sometimes gladly,
sometimes resentfully,
sometimes late… or soon.
We yield because you, beyond us, are our God,
We are our creatures met your your holiness,
by your holiness made our true selves.
And we yield. Amen.

Walter Brueggemann from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

Justification

Wanted to buy this book for some time, but waiting for another of my fav author's book (which is scheduled for release in late September), so that I can save on the shipping...

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Chinese intro about NT Wright and New Perspective on Paul

When I tried to introduce his ideas to my fellowship last year, it was so difficult, because really not much Chinese material available...

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