Dear Friends in Christ, One of the books I've been enjoying on this study leave is Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth by Walter Brueggemann. Dr. Brueggemann is an Old Testament professor at Columbia Theological Seminary. The book is filled with prayers that he has written which preceded his lectures. One of my favorites he titles "And Then You." Here it is:
Dr. Davis Chappell
And Then You We arrange our lives as best we can, to keep your holiness at bay, with our pieties, our doctrines, our liturgies, our moralities, our secret ideologies, Safe, virtuous, settled. And then you you and your dreams, you and your visions, you and your purposes, you and your commands, you and our neighbors. We find your holiness not at bay, but probing, pervading, insisting, demanding. And we yield, sometimes gladly, sometimes resentfully, sometimes late.....or soon.
We yield because you, beyond us, are our God. We are your creatures met by your holiness, by your holiness made our true selves. And we yield. Amen. Finally, it was good to welcome new members Greg Shiflett, Carole Starr, Todd, Leslie, Copel, and Elizabeth Norman, Matt and Kristen Broussard, Dan, Michelle, Aidan, Zackary, and Jacob Schacht at our main BUMC campus. We also welcome Gavin and Connor Meadows to our Trinity Church campus. Welcome to our church community. I remember you in my prayers,
Davis