Let Me Live Grace-fully
Thank you, Lord,
for this season
of sun and slow motion
of games and porch sitting,
of picnics and light green fireflies
on heavy purple evenings;
and praise for slight breezes.
It’s good, God,
as the first long days of your creation.
Let this season be for me
a time of gathering together the pieces
into which my busyness has broken me.
O God, enable me now
to grow wise through reflection,
peaceful through the song of the cricket,
recreated through the laughter of play.
Most of all, Lord,
let me live easily and grace-fully for a spell,
so that I may see other souls deeply,
share in silence unhurried,
listen to the sound of sunlight and shadows,
explore barefoot the land of forgotten
dreams and shy hopes, and find the right words to tell another who I am.
A Summer Prayer by Ted Loder in his book of prayers, "Guerrillas of Grace/Prayers for the Battle"
I found when I was in school administration and things were not well, I could get rather anxious about the passing of summer and not feeling like I had rested enough for the year that was ahead of me. Too often I found myself looking at the calendar to what remained; not unlike lying awake at night, worrying about not falling asleep and fretting about the time slipping by towards morning, feeling ever more unrested and anxious.
When things are well, its easier to fall into the needed rhythms of summer and to enjoy porch sitting, slight breezes, fire-red sunsets and cold beers, ripening firm tomatoes and fresh garden basil, good family and friends and long conversations and a third cup of coffee and a lazily read novel interrupted by head nodding naps.
What I didn't know on July 20, 2014 when I sent the poem, was how different things would look and feel for me two days later on July 22, when my school years came to an abrupt end.
What is really wonderful for me, looking back over this year, is that the Summer Prayer has been answered for me in ways that were not imaginable last July: more richly, more mysteriously, more deeply. The year a summer of sorts.
This summer prayer is for all who really need it, for those who are anxious and looking at summer calendar days slipping away. Read it over and over until it finds its way into you and you, into its mystery.