As I shared earlier, I am getting in on this Lent bandwagon.  I am actually very excited about the chance to focus the next several weeks on reflection, generosity, and increased scripture reading and prayer.  How can that be bad?
One thing that I am using to go through this season is a book that I also mentioned yesterday.  It is called by Stanley Hauerwas. I will be reading these prayers, in addition to scripture, and reflecting on them throughout the day.
I want to share something that he wrote on the book-flap.
If anything, these prayers are plain.  They are so because I discovered I could not pray differently than I speak.  In other words, I thought it would be a mistake to try to assume a different identity when I prayed.  I figured… that God could take it, because God did not need to be protected.  I think I leaned this over the yearsby praying the Psalms in church. God does not want us to come to the altar differently from how we live therest of our lives.  Therefore I do not try to be pious or use pious language in these prayers.  I try to speak plainly, yet I hope with some eloquence, since nothing is more eloquent than simplicity.† Stanley Hauerwas
Here is today’s prayer…
ZEALOUS GOD, we confess, like your people Israel, that we tire of being “the chosen.” Could you not just leave us alone every once in a while? Sometimes this “Christian stuff” gets a bit much. Â Life goes on and we have lives to live. Â Yet, unrelenting, you refuse to leave us alone. Â You are, after all, a zealous God. Â You startle us from our reveries by gathering us into your dream time, into your church. Â May we, thus gathered, be so inspired by your Spirit that our lives never tire, that we have the energy now to wait, to rest, in the goodness and beauty of your truth. Â AMEN.” Â Stanley Hauerwas
Peace, Jim
