Beginning Again

An Advent Prayer
Loving God,

 Thank-you for the gift

 Of beginning again

 When all seems lost

 Or weariness wears down

 The last inch of hope.
Yes, turn the page

 Of over-rehearsed despair

 Or dread of dullness

 Formed by too much

 Of just about everything.

 Form instead Your promise

 When night’s weight

 Seems too heavy for 

 Dawn’s readiness to rise 

 In surprises unlikely

 To be noticed by the world

 Yet formed by You 

 As the beginning place

 Of Your grand renewal,

 Starting as one small baby

 Still in formation

 Not yet ready to be born

 But quickening the senses

 With miraculous movement.

 Yes, form this advent

 Of Your grand reversal

 In me as I wait in wonder

 At what You will readily reveal

 In this long season 

 Of late dawn and early dusk.
Let me savor the beauty

 Of what I do not know

 Urging me to wait

 When all around me

 The world rushes 

 In frenzy of the overfull,

 The too much and the too soon.
Still me into the gift

 You so yearn to give,

 Of silence rising 

 From deep within 

 Touching everything 

 With Your cosmic creation

 Daring to form a new world

 Unknown by the old one

 Satisfied with a hypnosis

 Of over-rehearsed hopelessness.
Yes, grant me 

 An Advent awakening

 Muting every resistance 

 And releasing a new song

 Of thanks for Your grand gift 

 Of beginning again…

 Here…now…yes…thank-you.

-November 2022, DMLH