1/20/23

Pause for Prayer: FRIDAY 1/20

    Photo by Concord Pastor
    
A change of terrain for a few weeks!  I'm in the Rockies whose most remote origins go back some 1.6 billion years - but over a couple hundred million year era, those ancient Rockies eroded - and disappeared.
 
As "recently" as 100 million years ago, the whole of Colorado was under water but the flooding left behind sediment and sandstone yielding igneous rock and 75 million years ago volcanoes, mudflows and uplifts began to raise the Rockies to their present height and beauty...

No doubt about it, Lord:
    you've been taking your own sweet time
       with creation...

Those 7 days in Genesis
    - including one day off?
        Fuhgeddaboudit!
 
You let the first version (Rockies 1.0)
    simply wear away 
        before you gave it one more shot
and it was oh-so-worth the wait, Lord,
    more than worth the time you took
        to make of water, mud and ash 
the beauty we behold,
    your snow-capped glory reaching
        to the heavens where you live...
 
Be as patient, Lord, I pray,
    in the time you take with me
        as you've been with Colorado! 
 
Mix the water, mud and ash,
    of the stuff of my existence,
        with your Spirit's living breath...

Then flood me with your grace, Lord,
    and build me on the rock of faith
        to lift me to full stature
until something of your glory,
    is mirrored by my soul
        and in my thoughts, my words and deeds...

I don't have a million years, Lord
    (a century would surprise me!)
        but you're beyond time and space:
for you a day's a thousand years,
    a thousand years are as a day,
        in you all things begin and end...
 
So, shape me, Lord, and mold me,
    rebuild, restore, remake me
        to be who you intended:
your beloved, your child, your own,
    fashioned by your hands 
        and created for your glory...

Amen.
    

  

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1 comment:

  1. Beautiful writing, Fr Austin, about the indescribably beautiful Rockies. As an addendum, I’d like to add that residual evidence of the original Rockies are found in the stunning red tock canyons of West Texas. I encourage readers to visit “Caprock Canyons” online which are also home to the Texas State Bison Herd. If readers find the bison intriguing, I invite them to read my reflection on helping vaccinate them, “Donkeys, Lambs and Buffalo,” on my blog, Priesthood from the Inside Out: www.priesthoodinsideout.org. Thank you!

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