A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering: 9/18

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, just now, is near perfect

but soon a chill will spill into afternoon hours

and slowly pick the leaves from trees

until they’re bared of beauty,

summer’s glory fading fast...

Something in me longs to stall the seasons changing,

to stay the summer, holding back the dying

that comes 'round each year
as sunlight plays its game of hide-and-seek.

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 turn 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 into 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.