Skip to main content

Litany for Loosing

This was written for a prayer service in Anchorage, Alaska in response to a significant rise in reported homicides and other personal crimes. It has a partner in the Litany for Binding.

Holy God of all creation, you are always moving toward resurrection, restoration, and reformation. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.

God of love and light, you have provided us with diversity in race, creed, sexuality, experience, gender, and spiritual gifts- all of which can be used for healing and peace. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.

God of peace and hope, open our eyes and ears to see and hear stories of pain and promise that we might hold space for one another and move toward reconciliation. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.

God of consolation and mercy, those who grieve need accompaniment not only in the hours after death, but in the weeks, months, and years ahead. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.

God of justice and peace, help us to value the vocations of all who live within our city, peace officers and fire fighters, teachers and municipal employees, tourists and residents. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.

God of the living Word, grant us the courage and will to challenge complacency, resignation, and resistance against change and community. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are open to this work.

We truly welcome this.


Holy God, you are the ground and source of our very being. You have revealed your faithfulness through keeping your covenants, sending your prophets, and through the birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Knowing that you cause all things to work for good, we dare to ask that we would see that in Anchorage here and now. We ask to be part of how you heal and restore this city. We ask for change and we seek to accept how it convicts and transforms each of us in its wake. Stir up your Holy Spirit in us and send your peace to us and through us into the world. We ask all this in Christ’s name… [and all God’s children said]… Amen.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday
Post a Comment
Read more

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the
2 comments
Read more

When the Body of Christ is Fat

Bitmoji Julia enjoys tea Within a very short amount of time, two people whom I love were called "fat ass". One of these slurs occurred in the church building and the other occurred in the same building and within the context of worship. Both incidents were the result of a person with already impaired judgment lashing out at the person who was in front of them, perceiving them to be unhelpful or denying aid or service. Regardless of the "why", the reality is that the name was uncalled for, hurtful, and aimed to be a deep cut. The reality is that a person who is under the influence of legal or illegal substances and often displays impaired judgment can still tell that body shaming- comments about shape, appearance, or size- is a way to lash out at someone who is frustrating you. That means those words and that way of using them are deeply rooted in our culture. An additional truth is that when we, as a congregation, attempted to console and listen to those who h
6 comments
Read more