Pause before the prayer, allowing God’s Spirit to search your heart. Make your own confession.
Pause after the prayer to experience the reality of God’s forgiveness.
Why do I so readily settle for less, Spirit-giver?
Respectable religion
instead of living faith;
God-at-a-distance
instead of the searing closeness of your parenthood;
sameness
instead of the adventure of Spirit-life?
What is it I fear about you, Spirit?
What keeps my Scrooge-like heart shuttered to your Day?
Why do I so love shadows
when you offer me all the vibrancy of Light?
Why do I, a Child of the Sun,
choose to live as a creature of the Night?
You stand at the door.
I hear your knock.
Perhaps, if I keep silent,
you will think the house is empty
and leave.
Yet I long for your whirlwind presence,
the sweet-smelling air of heaven.
Do not go away, persistent Spirit.
Wherever you are going today;
wherever you are blowing –
take me with you!
Amen.