A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering

Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

Seems in my part of the world, Lord,

you’re easing us into autumn

with warm sunny days wrapped

in cool mornings and evenings…

The balance is, just now, near perfect

but soon the chill will spill into afternoon hours

and slowly pick the leaves from trees

until they’re bared of beauty

from summer’s glory…

Something in me longs to stall

the seasons changing, to stay the summer

and hold back fall’s first frost and

the dying that comes when the sun plays

its autumn game of hide and seek…

But seasons won’t be stopped

as they turn, turn, turn and reveal

how there’s a time for every purpose

under heaven…

There’s a time for summer, Lord,

and for the warm beauty of longer days,

for lazy stretches of rest and ease,

for time to play and pray,

I offer you my thanks and praise…

There’s a time for fall, Lord,

and for a brisk nip in the air quickening my step and pace,

for branches scratching prayers across a harvest moon,

for such rare, spare beauty,

I offer you my praise and thanks…

Inside and out, Lord,

my body and soul stand between these seasons:

no change in nature’s phases fails

to change in kind the seasons of my heart…

The rhythms of creation,

of suns and planets, moons and tides

all echo in my heart and my soul knows

how all that lives will die

and all that dies will rise again

when comes that spring that has no end…

Walk me from summer to fall, Lord,
that I not lose an hour's sunlight
or a day's warmth
or a moment's memory of sand and shore...

Walk me to fall from summer, Lord:
show yourself in all your leafy autumn beauty,
dropping down to lay a colored carpet,
a path beneath my steps...

Help me let go of what I hold too tightly,
what cannot last the whole year through,
and let my empty arms embrace what comes
with trust that even in the falling, in the dying,
you are with me, faithfully present
and abiding in all the seasons of my life...

Be my bridge, Lord, from summertime to fall
and ready me for all that lies ahead:
the winter and the cold, the springtime and its promise
and summer once again...

Walk with me, Lord,
and help me walk as gently with others
as you do with me...

Receive my prayer, this morning's offering,
and keep through the week ahead...

Amen.

(Click here for an archive of Monday Morning Offerings)