Prayers on the Hoof: Towards a Prayer for GC 2015 (Part 2 -- Thanksgiving)

Thanksgiving

You who nourish us with gifts of living, of growing, and of serving:

may we also grow the gifts you give us of appreciation and gratitude.

We thank you for mysterious beauty -- the shimmer of Northern Lights, the austere beauty of desert sands, the haunting songs of ocean waves.

We thank you for memories of cooler weather and for all who were part of the invention and creation of air conditioning and of its delivery to us here.

Rear wheel on Subaru Outback

We thank you for your gifts of life: the colors of butterfly wings, the dance of dragonflies mating, a cow delivering a calf, a devoted couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, organ donors who give a part of their body, the years given to the work of justice for others.

We thank you for people we have met at past General Conventions, those we have remembered with delight and those we have not, and for those we listen to, we meet, we debate with, and we share your presence with this week.

We thank you for the common faith we share here, even when we understand it or express it in very different ways; for our common ground in your presence as we share prayers and worship, our stories and songs.

We thank you for the differences which enrich us, for how we are like pieces of a great jigsaw puzzle which you put together to surprise us with our need for each other and how you delight in us.

We thank you for all the volunteers who have done, are doing, and will do the tasks needed for us to be here seeking your will for our church and how we can carry it out.

We thank you for those things which challenge us, which seem too hard, which threaten to make us angry and bitter, knowing that when we are empowered by your wild and wondrous Spirit, following Jesus, they can become the rocks we climb to new vision and understanding, the tunnels we squirm through in discovering new life and leaving the old things behind, the ground on which we encounter each other in your healing presence.

And we thank you for bringing us all together, for this messy, often confusing, sometimes exhausting, awe-filled work of continuing to become your Body.

Especially we thank you for love known to us in Jesus, who teaches us and frees us to embody Love.