Surprising Risings -An Ongoing Easter Prayer
Resurrecting God,
Continue Your surprising
Rising against all odds
Of everything that cages
Or resists Your power
To bear beauty and hope
Resilience and relief.
Let yesterday’s awe
At Your amazing arrival
Give way to the new bud
Of today’s beginnings
Ready to burst forth
In something yet unseen
By anyone except You
Whose delight answers death
With unexpected angels
In unlikely forms
Announcing a new beginning.
Let no weightiness of the world
Dare suppress Your surprise
Turning every death around
Rising in Your Holy time
In gladness and goodness
Measured only in wonder
At Your bounty breaking forth
In unexpected places
To unlikely people
No matter their past
Made alive by Your present
Loving presence making
All things unexplainably new.
Yes, cast aside every stone
Daring to block discovery
Of the opening You make
In continual risings of Life
In dramatic witness
Of Your way of weakness
Bearing strength beyond
Every death the world deals.
Yes, O Love of Life,
Bear Yourself again
In forms little and large
With surprising risings
Announcing again and again
Christ is risen and rises still!
Yes, indeed! Yes, indeed!
Yes, in every deed
Brought to life by You.
Grant again Your grace,
And power to notice
Your loving lurch
Evoking life-giving
Choruses of alleluia
Irresistible and everywhere
In all time and beyond time
Especially in today’s time.
Photo: Easter daffodils by David Long-Higgins
