Prayers for the Week of July 31, 2022

Please feel free to join in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, July 31, 2022:

Loving God,

you created this world,

set the world to spin upon its axis,

and to travel its orbit around the sun,

creating us to live

in the rhythm and seasons of life,

night and day, and night and day,

springtime, summer, fall, and winter,

the world in a quiet hush,

until new life springs forth again.

In every season of life we are yours in love,

we give you thanks and praise.

We pray for an aching world

that we have worked to the point of exhaustion,

bringing the climate to the verge of collapse.

Teach us ways of rest and rejuvenation

for the planet and all creation,

a Sabbath that breaks our cycles of consumption and waste,

a holy rest and new life for all creation.

We pray that you end our violent striving

and our warring madness.

Bring forth peace.

Help us find ways of living lives of mutuality,

that honor and respect the dignity of all people.

We pray for an end to all the systems that oppress,

and particularly the systems of American racism.

Help us to see the ways we are complicit

and stop.

Help us learn from and be led by

those who have been harmed the most,

that we may build together, with you, a better world.

We pray for all who are hurting –

for those who are ailing in body or spirit,

we pray for healing.

We give you thanks for the healing that we have experienced this week.

For those who are unhoused, we pray for shelter.

For those who are hungry, food enough and more.

For those who are lonely, companionship.

Give us wisdom to learn to live

our imperfect lives with compassion.

Help us ground our lives in you,

loving very neighbor as our self,

and you, with all that we are and will become.

Give us the courage to go down into the ditch,

when compassion calls us

to the healing, helping work that is ours to do.

Give us the good sense to pause and rest

and draw near to you,

so that we may be filled to overflowing

with all we need

to bless the world and you.

Connected in life to all your creation,

we praise you and thank you,

joining our voices, with the voices of all who have ever called your name, saying:

Our Father/Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Photo credit: Simon Berger, used with permission via Unsplash