Prayer for Late Summer
in gratitude for the NDPC Garden Team and Creation Care committee
by Rev. Beth Waltemath
Based on Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Unnameable God, you are too eternal to truly know, too expansive to wholly love.
And yet we feel you with us in every moment. This intuition is our invitation to a faith that sets us free.
We give thanks, O God, for the unexpected boldness of late summer. When the sun shines too bright and the heat burns too long, we cower in our climate-controlled spaces. We yoke ourselves back to our desks for work and for school in the hopes that we might control our destinies and secure our futures. We savor the last ripeness of summer fruits and freeze them to taste in grayer weather.
And yet even as we grieve what is fading – those shorter, quieter notes of birdsong in the morning, the dust of drying hydrangea petals, and the last juicy peach ,there are unexpected beauties pushing beyond our peripheries into full light.
They proclaim your everlasting glory with a new boldness.
Black-eyed Susans burst through wearing bright yellow crowns.
Begonias flash their regal reds
Tibouchina stand proud in purple velvet
Even the humble leaves of duranta line themselves in gold.
Not to mention the rainbow ofzZinnias with which we can still adorn our kitchen tables.
Late summer is a riot of color despite our fears that every tender, living thing would fly north or turn brown.
Unburiable Christ, do not our gardens teach us the lessons of faith? That in the sacred ground of our being is the seed of our next blossoming?
Therefore we pray today for
The beloved ones of creation who are passing away and deserve the honor of our tears,
The people who are struggling and need the healing of our compassion,
Those places who need our labor to harvest new life and to till a fertile field to plant seeds peace.
Untameable Spirit, who breathes the mercy of life through the gentlest breeze and the ushers the justice of love like a full-force gale, do not let us forget our faith, our power and our calling to be repairers of the breach.
There is a great division among us and it harms the most vulnerable – dragging down children, women, and those oppressed by ethnicity and expression of their gender and sexuality.
Give us the assurance of the Beloved Community we hope for and the conviction to pursue what we cannot see under the scorching reality of today’s heated debates and unrelenting wars.
With the seeds of faith we have and the desire to plant more until the Realm of God is here as it is in heaven, we pray. Amen.
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(C) Elizabeth Waltemath, 2022