Prayers (1 of 3)

Worship

Worship is a patchwork quilt

Worship is a patchwork quilt of people of different shapes, different characters, different sizes, different prejudices, different colours, different enthusiasms, different ages, different moods: all arranged, sometimes higgledy-piggledy, sometimes in arranged groups, sometimes half-higgledy and half-arranged, sometimes crazy.

Worship is a patchwork quilt of patchwork people, joined sometimes by one sewer, sometimes by a principal sewer and assistants. Sometimes worship is a quilting bee.

Worship is a patchwork quilt with quilting stitches which are sung, spoken, silent, and felt.

Worship is a patchwork quilt with quilting lines stitched counterpoint to the pattern of the patchwork; quilting lines which are sometimes arranged according to common themes of sorrow and sorry, or delight and dedication - the lines of common worship. Sometimes a special quilting theme is stitched counterpoint - a topical concern, a human condition, a where/why/how? question. Sometimes quilting lines just happen, just emerge unplanned - light in the first hymn found its unseen echo in the last.

Worship is a patchwork quilt to creep under from the cold of solitariness, fear and partialness, and to experience the quilt’s warmth of companionship, wholeness and love. It is to leave the quilt’s warm cosiness for the openness, opportunity and challenge of the wider world in which we live.

Worship is a patchwork quilt - a whole in which the many become one while keeping their individual identities - a patchwork quilt in the vast inter-dependent patchwork of creation.

Patchwork God bless us now.
Andrew M Hill

Peace

Lord,
With your spirit, guide the efforts of humankind to bring peace and justice to the nations of the earth, and give strength to rulers and all who work to establish peace and justice in the world.
Prosper the activities of those who work to preserve human rights.
Promote the endeavours of all who work for reconciliation and justice.
Deliver us from the forces of malice, jealousy and fear.
Direct us into the ways of understanding, cooperation and mutual respect.
Bless all peacemakers.
Sustain all peace keepers.
Break down all barriers of ignorance, suspicion and fear.
Build up those things that make for peace, justice and freedom.
Enable us to live with dignity as brothers and sisters united in our diversity and our desire for a world where war itself is but an event only dimly remembered.
Amen.
Peter Teets

Prayers for Remembrance

Remember Them
They have lived their lives in service.
They have left their loved ones.
They have secured our freedom.
They have been hated and despised.
They have lost lives in service.
They have been left fragile and broken.
They have maintained our peace.
They have been cheered and honoured.
They are our brothers and sisters.
They are our sons and daughters.
They are our mothers and fathers.
They are not forgotten.
They will never be forgotten.
They are remembered.
Amen.
Peter Teets

We see barriers erected between people of different lands,
We see sheets of steel and towers of concrete called Protection.
We see boundaries policed,
watch men, women and children running from hunger and persecution,
looking for a gap in the wall………

Something there is that doesn't love a wall…………
We see walls of fear –
Fear of the young, fear of the stranger,
Fear of sexuality that is different, fear of the educated, fear of the poor,
Fear of the Muslim, fear of the Jew –
Fear upon fear, endless and perpetuating,
And we offer our silent prayer that solid walls of fear will crumble to dust.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall…………
We hear the language of separation,
The jingoistic chant, the racial slur,
words of indifference and dismissal,
words arranged for the purpose of exclusion,
words that sting and taunt,
words that lie.
Let us find words that ring with love and truthfulness,
that reach out through the emptiness of separation.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall…………
We see the deluded barriers of the mind protecting self,
We see relationships stripped of affection
as one person becomes closed to another.
We see people trapped in misunderstanding,
old hurts re-ignited,
bricks placed higher on the wall,
goodwill and trust suspended.
and we ask for boundaries that are not impenetrable,
through which light can shine and distance be dissolved.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall………….
And when we need these boundaries for our own well being,
Let us know them for what they are,
Use them wisely and kindly,
Recognising our own vulnerability and that of others –
So each of us can find the space for retreat and succour,
find that peace that passes all understanding
and be renewed with strength and love
for the task of living life joyfully in communion with all others.
Amen
Rev Margaret Kirk