One Word
This winter on The Daily Pattern we’re in a series called One Word. Each day we take one word – a feeling or circumstance – and bring a word from God to it. Let the Word of God speak to your life.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5) O Lord, I am lowly and humble. You alone are my inheritance. Amen.
Word: John 12:46
“Lord, I do believe; help me overcome“I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” my unbelief.”
Meditation
Lighting Candles and Sowing Seeds (prepared by Megan Roegner)
Although the four-week season of Advent in the liturgical year is over, we are still in a time of anticipation as we wait for the Light to return. In the following passages from the essay “Sam’s Brother” in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott reflects on faith, doubt, hope, and finding light in darkness.
I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me—that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
During Advent, Christians prepare for the birth of Jesus, which means the true light. All your better religions have a holy season as the days grow shorter, when we ask ourselves, Where is the spring? Will it actually come again this year, break through the quagmire, the terror, the cluelessness? Probably not, is my response, when I’m left to my own devices. All I can do is stay close to God, and my friends. I notice the darkness, light a few candles, scatter some seeds. And in Nature, and in my spiritual community, I can usually remember that we have to dread things only one day at a time. Insight doesn’t help here. Hope is not logical. It always comes as a surprise, just when you think all hope is lost. Hope is the cousin to grief, and both take time: you can’t short-circuit grief, or emptiness, and you can’t patch it up with your bicycle tire tube kit. You have to take the next right action.
I was anxious while I waited. The rain came down, dark and loud. I couldn’t wait to get back to my own home: this was the perfect time to plant bulbs and scatter seeds, in the hope that some would grow. But meanwhile, in Advent, we show up when we are needed; we try to help, we prepare for an end to the despair. And we do this together.
from “Sam’s Brother,” Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott
Prayer for Family
· For my immediate family (parents, spouse, siblings).
· For extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents)
· For close friends that are as family to me.
· For those who don’t have families, or whose families are broken.
· For forgiveness and reconciliation where there is division in my family.
· For provision where there is need in my family.
· For God to be the foundation, and the cross the center of my family.
· For a generation yet unborn, future members of our family.
Closing Prayer
O Lord and King, your Kingdom comes even without our prayer. But we pray that it would also come among us. We are desperate for your reign and rule, for all we see is rebellion. Come into my heart, my home, my family, my work, my church, my community. Rule with justice and with mercy. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.