Month: January 2009

UMC wants to place female pastors in the pulpits of their largest churches

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Yesterday The Wahington Post reported this in their Religion Briefing:

The United Methodist Church, which boasts a history of ordaining women clergy, is seeking to shatter the so-called “stained-glass ceiling” blocking female pastors from its largest pulpits.

The nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination has launched a new initiative, the Lead Women Pastor Project, to examine barriers to women being appointed pastors to Methodist churches with more than 1,000 members. The Nashville-based United Methodist Church has 44,842 clergy, and about 10,000 are female — or 23 percent. Yet just 85 women lead those largest churches, compared with 1,082 men in those positions.

Church leaders say more women are needed to shepherd large churches, given that women make up more than half of those enrolled in master of divinity programs in United Methodist seminaries. Also, almost 58 percent of the 8 million-member denomination is female.

I’m glad the UMC is taking steps to make sure that their female pastors lead in churches of every size. It’s great that they are wanting women in leadership to reflect the percentage of their women in both seminaries and in their denomination.

RevGals Friday Five: Cabin Fever

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Singing Owl writes: Sorry for the late posting! My daughter’s car won’t start, and I just returned from driving her to work. I think she made need a block heater. Speaking of that…

Here in snow country we are settled in to what is a very long stretch of potentially boring days. The holidays are over. It is a very long time till we will get outside on a regular basis. The snow that seemed so beautiful at first is now dirty and the snow banks are piling up. Our vehicles are all the same shade of brownish grey, but if we go to the car wash our doors will freeze shut. People get grumpy. Of course, not everyone lives in a cold climate, but even in warmer places the days till springtime can get long. Help! Please give us five suggestions for combating cabin fever and staying cheerful in our monochromatic world?

1. Read

2. Watch movies

3. Bug The Hubby

4. Drag The Hubby to the bedroom (Hey! We have a TV and a DVR and lots of bookshelves in the bedroom!)

5. Cook and bake

And here’s an extra one: Crochet

The National Prayer Service Sermon: Harmonies of Liberty

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Here is the full transcript of Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins’ sermon from this morning’s National Prayer Service from The Christian Church/Disciples of Christ. You can watch a webcast of the service at the Washington National Cathedral’s site.

Isaiah 58:6-12, Mt 22:6-40
Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins
National Prayer Service; January 21, 2009

Mr. President and Mrs. Obama, Mr. Vice President and Dr. Biden, and your families, what an inaugural celebration you have hosted! Train ride, opening concert, service to neighbor, dancing till dawn…

And yesterday… With your inauguration, Mr. President, the flame of America’s promise burns just a little brighter for every child of this land!

There is still a lot of work to do, and today the nation turns its full attention to that work. As we do, it is good that we pause to take a deep spiritual breath. It is good that we center for a moment.

What you are entering now, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, will tend to draw you away from your ethical center. But we, the nation that you serve, need you to hold the ground of your deepest values, of our deepest values.

Beyond this moment of high hopes, we need you to stay focused on our shared hopes, so that we can continue to hope, too.

We will follow your lead.

There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom:

One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.

“There are two wolves struggling inside each of us,” the old man said.

“One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear…

“The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love…”

The grandson sat, thinking, then asked: “Which wolf wins, Grandfather?”

His grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

There are crises banging on the door right now, pawing at us, trying to draw us off our ethical center – crises that tempt us to feed the wolf of vengefulness and fear.

We need you, Mr. President, to hold your ground. We need you, leaders of this nation, to stay centered on the values that have guided us in the past; values that empowered to move us through the perils of earlier times and can guide us now into a future of renewed promise.

We need you to feed the good wolf within you, to listen to the better angels of your nature, and by your example encourage us to do the same.

This is not a new word for a pastor to bring at such a moment. In the later chapters of Isaiah, in the 500’s BCE, the prophet speaks to the people. Back in the capital city after long years of exile, their joy should be great, but things aren’t working out just right. Their homecoming is more complicated than expected. Not everyone is watching their parade or dancing all night at their arrival.

They turn to God, “What’s going on here? We pray and we fast, but you do not bless us. We’re confused.”

Through the prophet, God answers, what fast? You fast only to quarrel and fight and strike with the fist…

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice… to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house . .? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly…

At our time of new beginning, focused on renewing America’s promise -yet at a time of great crisis – which fast do we choose? Which “wolf” do we feed? What of America’s promise do we honor?

Recently Muslim scholars from around the world released a document, known as “A Common Word Between Us.” It proposes a common basis for building a world at peace. That common basis? Love of God and love of neighbor! What we just read in the Gospel of Matthew!

So how do we go about loving God? Well, according to Isaiah, summed up by Jesus, affirmed by a worldwide community of Muslim scholars and many others, it is by facing hard times with a generous spirit: by reaching out toward each other rather than turning our backs on each other. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “people can be so poor that the only way they see God is in a piece of bread.”

In the days immediately before us, there will be much to draw us away from the grand work of loving God and the hard work of loving neighbor. In crisis times, a basic instinct seeks to take us over – a fight/flight instinct that leans us toward the fearful wolf, orients us toward the self-interested fast…

In international hard times, our instinct is to fight – to pick up the sword, to seek out enemies, to build walls against the other – and why not? They just might be out to get us. We’ve got plenty of evidence to that effect. Someone has to keep watch and be ready to defend, and Mr. President – Tag! You’re it!

But on the way to those tough decisions, which American promises will frame those decisions? Will you continue to reason from your ethical center, from the bedrock values of our best shared hopes? Which wolf will you feed?

In financial hard times, our instinct is flight – to hunker down, to turn inward, to hoard what little we can get our hands on, to be fearful of others who may take the resources we need. In hard financial times, which fast do we choose? The fast that placates our hunkered-down soul – or the fast that reaches out to our sister and our brother?

In times, such as these, we the people need you, the leaders of this nation, to be guided by the counsel that Isaiah gave so long ago, to work for the common good, for the public happiness, the well-being of the nation and the world, knowing that our individual wellbeing depends upon a world in which liberty and justice prevail.

This is the biblical way. It is also the American way – to believe in something bigger than ourselves, to reach out to neighbor to build communities of possibility, of liberty and justice for all. This is the center we can find again whenever we are pulled at and pawed at by the vengeful wolf, when we are tempted by the self-interested fast.

America’s true character, the source of our national wisdom and strength, is rooted in a generous and hopeful spirit.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,…
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,1

Emma Lazarus’ poetry is spelled out further by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,: “As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy… I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made.”2

You yourself, Mr. President, have already added to this call, “If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child… . It’s that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes this country work.”

It is right that college classes on political oratory already study your words . You, as our president, will set the tone for us. You will help us as a nation choose again and again which wolf to feed, which fast to choose, to love God by loving our neighbor.

We will follow your lead – and we will walk with you. And sometimes we will swirl in front of you, pulling you along.

At times like these – hard times -we find out what we’re made of. Is that blazing torch of liberty just for me? Or do we seek the “harmonies of liberty”, many voices joined together, many hands offering to care for neighbors far and near?

Though tempted to withdraw the offer, surely Lady Liberty can still raise that golden torch of generosity to the world. Even in these financial hard times, these times of international challenge, the words of Katherine Lee Bates describe a nation with more than enough to share: “Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain…”

A land of abundance guided by a God of abundance, generosity, and hope – This is our heritage. This is America’s promise which we fulfill when we reach out to each other.

Even in these hard times, rich or poor, we can reach out to our neighbor, including our global neighbor, in generous hospitality, building together communities of possibility and of hope. Even in these tough times, we can feed the good wolf, listen to the better angels of our nature. We can choose the fast of God’s desiring.

Even now in these hard times let us

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring,
… with the harmonies of Liberty;

Even now let us Sing a song full of hope…

Especially now, from the center of our deepest shared values, let us pray, still in the words of James Weldon Johnson:

Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us… in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.3

1. Emma Lazarus
2. The Words of MLK, Jr., selected by Coretta Scott King, 21
3. James Weldon Johnson

Crossposted at Street Prophets.

National Prayer Service at 9:00 a.m.

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Remember The National Prayer Service will begin at 9:00 a.m. on The Washington National Cathedral’s website. Rev. Sharon E. Watkins (General Minister and President of The Christian Church/Disciples of Christ) will be preaching, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church will be giving the benediction. If you watch it let me know what you think.

My 4 Favorite Moments from the Inauguration

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Herbert Bridges, 94, cries as he watches Obama sworn in as president. The photo is from The LA Times.

From the Inaugural Speech:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them— that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. . . .

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. . . .

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

“Praise song for the day” by Elizabeth Edwards (click here to see video).

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowry’s benediction:

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance. . .

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against  nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around–when yellow will be mellow–when the red man can get ahead, man–and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen —

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: — and amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

It was such a good day. I am so happy to have seen history made, and to have a president that I was proud to vote for.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori offering closing prayer at National Prayer Service

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This is from Episcopal Life Online:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will offer the closing prayer at a National Prayer Service set for January 21 at Washington National Cathedral. President Barack Obama and his family are scheduled to attend the invitation-only service.

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, will welcome attendees to the event, followed by an invocation from Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane.

The 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee announced on January 16 the spiritual leaders who will participate in the service, which is a tradition dating back to the inauguration of George Washington and is considered the conclusion of the official inaugural events.

The prayer service, set to begin at 10 a.m. EST, will be broadcast live on the cathedral’s website. Online participants can light “virtual” candles and leave personal messages of hope, renewal, and reconciliation at the website. Online visitors can also access an historic presidential photo gallery, view video footage of the national prayer service, and explore the role of this “church for national purposes” throughout the years, according to a news release from the cathedral.

The service will include scripture readings, prayers (including those for civic leaders and the nation), hymns and blessings delivered by faith leaders from across the United States. The Rev. Sharon E. Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will deliver the sermon, the first time a woman has preached at the service.

I am not only one happy Episcopalian, but I am one happy feminist theologian. Two women who are ordained and the leaders of their national religion/denominations are part of the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral on Inauguration Day. I will be watching the live broadcast that morning. I am so happy!

Martin Marty's response to Warren praying at the Inauguration

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Long-time subscribers know that Monday Sightings does not “do” U.S. Presidents or presidential candidates, but this twilight moment after an election and before an inauguration provides me with another category, “President-Elect,” which today’s column will notice for an important reason.  That reason?  The approach to religion-and-politics proposed by President-Elect Obama in his “Call to Renewal” address on May 28, 2006.  I may print it out and use my new Christmas-gift magnets to affix it to a refrigerator door as a text for morning meditations. Here is an excerpt:

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.  Democracy requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason.  I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will.  I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all…Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.  It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible.  At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise.  It’s the art of the impossible.  If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences.  To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy-making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”

Now, contrast this with a message posted by the Reverend Pastor Richard Duane Warren, with whom I have no motive to pick a fight.  But I wish he would engage in dialogue with his friend, the President-elect, before and after Inauguration Day.  Warren:

“As church leaders, we know our congregations are not allowed to endorse specific candidates, and it’s important for us to recognize that there can be multiple opinions among Bible-believing Christians when it comes to debatable issues such as the economy, social programs, Social Security, and the war in Iraq.  But for those of us who accept the Bible as God’s Word and know that God has a unique, sovereign purpose for every life, I believe there are five issues that are non-negotiable.  To me, they’re not even debatable because God’s Word is clear on these issues.”

These have to do with abortion, stem-cell harvesting, homosexual “marriage,” human cloning, and euthanasia.  He chose these five, about which the printed Bible displays only a few inches of text that can even be used as inferences to support them, as “non-negotiable” themes. He shelves as negotiable the multiple yards of printed biblical texts on some social issues which to him seem negotiable.  With the President-Elect I affirm that Pastor Warren’s “uncompromising commitments may be sublime,” but I do see that “to base our policy-making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”

We Bible-believing Christians are offended when some Muslims base social and political policy on the Qur’an, or ruling parties in India, on texts from their holy books, since we do not accept such texts as “God’s Word.”  What Pastor Warren and millions in his camp advocate works only in a theocracy, where the whole population accepts or is forced to accept one faith’s “God’s Word.”  I really, really would like to eavesdrop if the President-Elect and the Pastor were to converse about this question.

The obligatories: this column comes to you via Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

H/T to PastorDan at Street Prophets.

Epiphany Vespers Office

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We three kings of Orient are;
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

Refrain

O star of wonder, star of light,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign.

Refrain

Frankincense to offer have I;
Incense owns a Deity nigh;
Prayer and praising, voices raising,
Worshipping God on high.

Refrain

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

Refrain

Glorious now behold Him arise;
King and God and sacrifice;
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Sounds through the earth and skies.

Refrain

Words & Music: John H. Hop­kins, Jr., 1857. Hop­kins wrote this car­ol for a Christ­mas pa­geant at the Gen­er­al The­o­lo­gic­al Sem­in­ary in New York Ci­ty.

O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

O Gracious Light Phos hilaron

O gracious light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of Life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

Psalm 96

O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples.
4For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
5For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6Honour and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

7Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
8Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9Worship the Lord in holy splendour;
tremble before him, all the earth.

10Say among the nations, ‘The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.’
11Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12   let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13   before the Lord; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.

Glory to the Father[-Mother], and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

A reading from Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men* from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,* and have come to pay him homage.’ 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah* was to be born. 5They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6″And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd* my people Israel.” ’

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men* and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,* until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped,* they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Thanks be to God.

Magnificat Antiphon: Seeing the star, the Magi said: “This is the sign of a great king. Let us search for him and lay our treasures at his feet: gold, frankincense and myrrh.” Alleluia.

The Song of Mary    Magnificat

Luke 1:46-55

My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
as he promised to our forefathers,
Abraham and his seed for ever.

Glory to the Father[-Mother], and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Magnificat Antiphon: Seeing the star, the Magi said: “This is the sign of a great king. Let us search for him and lay our treasures at his feet: gold, frankincense and myrrh.” Alleluia.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Our Father[-Mother] in heaven,
hallowed be your Name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
and deliver us from evil.

Lord, hear our prayer.
And let our cry come to you.
Let us pray.

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the Peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today in the World Cycle of prayer we pray for the people of the Chad.
Today in the Anglican Cycle of prayer we pray for the diocese of Central Zambia (Central Africa).
Today in the Ecumenical Cycle of Prayer we pray for our sisters and brothers, the Church in Wales.

Lord Jesus, though born a child, you reign as king. You have revealed in the flesh the marvelous love and power of our God. Accept our gifts as we pray: Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

King of the nations, you called the Magi as the first of the Gentiles to kneel before you; help us to honor you with praise and thanksgiving.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

King of glory, you judge the peoples with justice; free the oppressed and break the power of the wicked.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

Prince of Peace, you shatter the weapons of war; give us peace til the moon fails.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

King of Justice, you long to save the poor and the helpless; have pity on the lowly and sunder the chains of human slavery.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

Eternal King, you are faithful from age to age; forever send your word into our hearts like snow on winter stubble.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

Lord, your name is blessed forever and endures like the sun; fulfill for the dead the glorious promise of your salvation.
Lord Jesus, grant us your salvation.

With a star’s radiance, O God, you guided the nations to the Light; in a prophet’s words you revealed the mystery of the Messiah’s coming; through the Magi’s gifts you unfolded the richness of the Savior’s mission. Scatter again the darkness that covers the earth and divides peoples. Make our hearts thrill anew to see the multitudes carried as sons and daughters in your arms. In Christ and through Christ’s Gospel draw the ends of the earth into your family, that disparate cultures and warring nations may be gathered together as one. We ask this through Jesus, the Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

The Magnificat Antiphon, Litany, and Concluding Prayer were taken from Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary. The rest of the office is from The Book of Common Prayer.

A depressing way to start the day

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I got an outrageous water bill for my house in Kansas City. I called my realtor, and a pipe burst in my house. Sometime last month. The cabinets in the kitchen are warped, and the ceiling in the kitchen and living room have fallen in. The hardwood floor is gone. It looks like the house is a total loss.

An insurance claims adjuster and plumber will be meeting there after 5:00 to see what happened and assess damages. The clean up service will be there around 3:00. I’m getting ready to see how good my home owner’s insurance is. I am so depressed. Please pray for me. I will keep you updated.