9/17/12

Monday Morning Offering - 208


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)


 

   
Subscribe to A Concord Pastor Comments

1 comment:

Please THINK before you write
and PRAY before you think!