Gracious donor of our days, you lend joy to all the living;

you hold nothing back from the ones you love!

Like a spendthrift giddy with gold, you bring hundred-fold harvests from a single seed.

You open hidden streams, and dry lands bloom.

You make sweet bread in heaven, and rain it down.

You bend trees to the ground,                                                                                   and tiny children eat the season’s fruit.

Our eager hands are cupped around your blessings; our laps are heavy with gifts from you!

Praise, honor and thanks from everything you made, from everything that is yours, now and forever; forever and a day!

Patient and Forbearing God,  give us new vision, for we no longer see each other. Our neighbor is indistinct, a blur in the corner of the careless eye.

Give us new memories, for we have forgotten each other’s names. No one calls out in greeting, happy to know we are all still alive.

Give us new hands, for we cannot feel the texture of the neighbor’s jagged pain, or the raised scar on the face of earth.

Give us beating hearts, for telling time correctly is a lost art. The fig tree’s unproductive branches raise no alarm, no shiver down the spine.

Give us Jesus, for without him we cross the road, we step over the dying on the way to church, we pay nothing for anybody’s care.

He saw us whole and knew our names. He felt our scars with wounded hands. He told the truthful time.

He dragged us out of ditches where we lay unhelped, and emptied his pockets for our healing. His welcome was wide, his passion was fierce, his hope was rewarded, and his mercy never ends.

O God, our God,
The night is gone,
the day is new,
you are the same:
store-house of fresh chances,
donor of dreams.
For light that lifts our hearts to you,
for hope you place in our hands like bread,                                                   all praise be yours, O God, our God.

Amen.

The heart knows, even if it can’t believe:

to you we are a fine crop in a record year,

a windfall you keep counting

to be sure it’s true

while your hearts races

and you dream

about new chances you have now.

The heart knows, even when it can’t believe:

to you we are a gift a lover leaves

at the door, then rings the bell

and runs away to watch

from behind a tree

your face break into light,

your happiness increase.

Bless to me

my rest tonight, O God.

Send love to guide me through

the little death.

While stars swirl

and night deepens

keep your eye on me:

this sleeping life is yours.

Love and guard it

until morning comes,

the next one,

and the last.

Holy One,

the generations come and go,

but you are ageless Love.

No chance or change diverts your heart from us,

the apple of your eye.

Our parents’ parents called on you,

and when our children’s children open newborn eyes,

they’ll find you faithful still—

grace unreasoning in love, untiring and unspent.

Glory be to you, now and forever. Amen.

O Jesus, risen from the dead,
the birds have nests, the foxes holes,
and the kings of earth their mansions,
but you had nowhere to lay your head.
Yet you made a home for everyone,
gathering us under your wings
like a hen gathers her chicks.
Even in death you were preparing                                                        rooms for us in the heart of God.
And now your eye is forever the lamp
over the door of our lives;
your heart, the safe gate
through which we come and go;
your hand, the roof above our sleeping:
under the cover of your palm
we lie down and dream.
Praise to you, O Christ, shelter and peace,
now and forever. Amen.