PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

By Peggy Muncaster 

January 26, 2003

Creator of all things large and small, we thank you for these misty mild grey days, for the dormant bare branches of trees gleaming with diamond water drops, and air scrubbed clean by gentle rain. Thank you for the snow in our mountains, replenishing the reservoirs and delighting our winter recreationers. We are in awe indeed at the thoroughness and perfection of this, your creation, as we progress through the seasons of our existence.

Gracious God, make us aware of your transforming grace, blossoming in us like the first crocuses, harbingers of spring. With the sunshine of your nurturing love, you encourage our growth in wisdom, transforming our judgementalism to mercy, our self-righteousness to forgiveness, our self-pity to generosity of spirit and action.

As the reluctant prophet Jonah amply demonstrates, you have endowed us with free will. God, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, help us to harness the power in us to transform the world we live in to a better, kinder, gentler place. Help us to be your hands and feet, your voice and heart and eyes and mind on this earth.

May thy guiding spirit reside in our leaders who must daily find the light of inspiration and the spark of courage to guide our lives, our institutions, and our countries. We pray that leaders worldwide use discernment to first know your will and then engage in the flow of right action.

We hold in prayer those brave sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents, husbands and wives who have been sent by their countries into areas of conflict and strife, and also those who have been left behind.

May thy spirit of wisdom and mercy, kindness and justice move this day in the hands and minds of all thy servants.

Through your wisdom, may we find our way to creating positive solutions for poverty, the repair of ecological damage, and relief from religious and ethnic conflict, and political and cultural disenfranchisement worldwide.

Great healer of body and soul, we pray for all who suffer the pain of sickness, loneliness, fear or loss, so that those whose names are in our hearts, or known to you alone, may receive strength and courage.

God, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

Gracious God, we offer these prayers of intercession and thanksgiving to you in the name of the one who taught us when we pray together to say,

Our loving God, who art in heaven, 
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil:
for thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.