Monday Morning Offering: October 5

  Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

Been thinking about my homily yesterday, Lord:

the preacher often needs to listen carefully

to precisely what he preaches!

Whether I pay close attention or not, Lord, 

there's not a moment in my day when I'm not thinking,

when I don't have thoughts of some kind or shape or form

in my mind and my imagination...

Even asleep, I have dreams, Lord,
- and I know you don't hold me accountable for those!

 

My thoughts

(the hundreds, maybe thousands of thoughts

that pass through my mind every day)

my thoughts come and go 

and link from one to another so quickly
that sometimes I don't know the beginning of one

from the end of another...

 

I probably have too many thoughts to keep track of, Lord
but I think I can quickly list some of my thoughts 

that you find less than pleasing...

 

This morning, then, 

I offer for your mercy and your healing, Lord,

my misdirected, uninspired,

less-than-pleasing thoughts...

 

I offer for  your mercy and your healing

my jealous thoughts,

green with envy,

my resentful thoughts,

grudged deep within my heart... 

 

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my proud thoughts, 

my overblown self-estimation,

my quiet gloating over others's faults, 

their failings and misfortune... 

 

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my judgmental thoughts, 

my verdicts handed down in the courtroom of my mind

where I am prosecutor, judge and jury... 

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my selfish thoughts,

my entitled and self-indulgent thoughts,

blinding me to others' needs

and how I might reach out to them...

 

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my lustful thoughts,

stealing for my own imagined pleasure

beauty you've created, 

love that isn't mine...

 

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my greedy thoughts,

desiring, collecting, hoarding

much more than I need

while others go without...

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my hateful thoughts,

disdaining, dismissing, discarding those

I disagree with, am at odds with,

those who've hurt, rejected or offended me...

I offer for your mercy and your healing

my wasted thoughts, my foolish thoughts,

my childish thoughts, my angry thoughts,

my careless thoughts, my selfish thoughts

and any thought of mine, leading me away

from you, Lord, and from my neighbor..
 

Lord, that's my litany of less than pleasing thoughts:

I want my thoughts to please you, Lord,

but they wander, they stray,

they leave the path I want to walk,

the road I'm called to travel,

routing me in directions I'd never planned to go...

But these are my thoughts, Lord:
they belong to me and I must own them.
My thoughts have patterns and habits

and, it seems sometimes, a mind of their own.
But they're the thoughts of my mind, Lord,
and the mind my thoughts possess 

is the mind I've loaned, supplied and given them...

And so I need your help...

My less than pleasing thoughts can shape
a less than pleasing heart 
and a less than pleasing heart can yield
a less than pleasing life...

Send me your Spirit, Lord, to sweep and broom,
to chase the less than pleasing from my mind,
and from my heart and words and deeds...

 
Speak your word 
and plant within my thoughts the seeds of all that's
sweet and savory, humble and forgiving, 
merciful, understanding, pure and true, 
selfless and giving, and generously compassionate...

And help me nurture what you plant, Lord,
until your thoughts are my thoughts, 
your heart is my heart 
and your ways are my ways... 

In the quiet of my prayer, Lord,
help me know the thoughts I need to sweep away
and open me to thoughts that will truly bring me peace...

 

Amen.

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