Hopeful

On New Year’s Eve, We Pray

Hear, listen to me, here I am again;
Hasten to me, as I am anxious tonight, as I call.    
My words should be sweet, perfumed for you,
and yet, Lord, my anxiety makes for acrid incense.
I raise my hands, and I want to fall down,
for great is my anxiety, my fears, and I cross from this year to this new year.
New Year’s Eve, and I pray for a year of Divine Connection!
Too often my mouth lets loose the wrong words;
shape my cheeks, my lips, my cleft, so that
I can ask for those things that are good.
My heart heaves and sighs, too often evil;
Lord, fill my heart, fill me with you.
New Year’s Eve, and I pray for a year of Divine Intervention.
I pray tonight to be good and kind,
to be a righteous man.
I wish, and wish again, to be a blessing,
as I am blessed, called to be present,
to walk beside those who are hungry and alone.
Too often I wonder off with those who love evil,
and they love to be with me;
put barriers between me and evil.
Even as I rush to my evils that invite me in,
I know to ask what is elusive: Pull me to you Lord.
It is the eve of a new year, and I see the
nets that I often try to snare me.
I am aware to elude them, and
Still I go toward them, lured by my evil.

On this New Year’s Eve, I lift
up those who need your divine intervention,
Those who thrive in the divine connection:
Bless our President, our legislators, our bureaucrats too.
Bless my state and those who are
entrusted to care for and lead us here.
Powerful leaders of nations we scarcely know,
bless them too Lord.
Too many friends ail, and some wander, jobless;
heal them this year in ways I cannot even imagine.
In-laws and family far-flung are dying
in ways I barely know, in ways full of pain,
and in ways memory-fogged;
connect with them this year in all your ways.
Men and women are alone, homeless, hungry
for spiritual and temporal nourishment,
blue and callous-freed, exposing weepy wounds;
fill them this year in ways ancient and new.

I am unsure of where to be and who to be;
Let me be a disciple of Jesus each day.
Put me where you will, God of Grace.
Use me as you will, God of Love.
Inspire me to pray large, Majestic God.

Bring joy to this world, God, ancient and fresh.
Keep us safe, Lord.
Not too comfortable, Lord.

(C) Tom Bolton, Milwaukee, December 29, 2012