Prayer: Beginning Again with the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
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Beginning Again
An Advent Prayer
Loving God,
Loving God,
Thank-you for the gift
Of beginning again
When all seems lost
Or weariness wears down
The last inch of hope.
Yes, turn the page
Yes, turn the page
Of over-rehearsed despair
Or dread of dullness
Formed by too much
Of just about everything.
Form instead Your promise
When night’s weight
Seems too heavy for
Dawn’s readiness to rise
In surprises unlikely
To be noticed by the world
Yet formed by You
As the beginning place
Of Your grand renewal,
Starting as one small baby
Still in formation
Not yet ready to be born
But quickening the senses
With miraculous movement.
Yes, form this advent
Of Your grand reversal
In me as I wait in wonder
At what You will readily reveal
In this long season
Of late dawn and early dusk.
Let me savor the beauty
Let me savor the beauty
Of what I do not know
Urging me to wait
When all around me
The world rushes
In frenzy of the overfull,
The too much and the too soon.
Still me into the gift
Still me into the gift
You so yearn to give,
Of silence rising
From deep within
Touching everything
With Your cosmic creation
Daring to form a new world
Unknown by the old one
Satisfied with a hypnosis
Of over-rehearsed hopelessness.
Yes, grant me
Yes, grant me
An Advent awakening
Muting every resistance
And releasing a new song
Of thanks for Your grand gift
Of beginning again…
Here…now…yes…thank-you.
-November 2022, DMLH
