Morning Prayer Friday, 29 May 2020
Weeping may endure for the night
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
Psalm 30: 5b
Welcome to Friday, you congregation of Christ the Cornerstone!
Have you touched the air?
Tasted the morning?
At the beginning of this new day
let us praise the Lord in prayer and poetry.
We thank you Lord for today,
full of unknown adventure,
crisp with fresh thoughts, alive with your touch.
We’re grateful for the blessing of rest
and your care for us throughout the night.
The Most Amazing Day – a poem by e.e. cummings
I thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes.
(I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birthday
of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
How should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Lord, we pray that you will support us
as the day goes on to know and do your will.
Keep us and all we love safe under your wings.
Protect the people of the NHS and all caring professions,
as times are hard.
Protect the people back at work,
as times are fearful.
Protect our neighbours and those we meet,
as times are lonely.
In your mercy, lead us today.
A poem by Margaret Orford
My hands are warm to the butterfly
I am trying to set free.
Delicate, frail creature of beauty,
what can it know of me?
I am outside its comprehension.
It knows sunshine and showers,
darkness and the feel of flowers.
We do not ask it to do the impossible
and know Man.
So we, with God,
who looks with tenderness upon our frailty,
trying to guide us.
Trust Him!
He knows the way, and, if we let him,
will open windows,
and, cradling us gently in hands we cannot comprehend,
will lift us up and set us free.
We lift to you our city centre and all the people
who are preparing the slow opening
of the shops and businesses eager for custom.
We lift to you the people who haunt the hidden places,
lonely for company, living in dread.
We lift to you the people planning the opening of our church.
Bless them all with a calm spirit,
imaginative insight and care for each other
as broad as the boulevards.
In your mercy,
lead us today.
We stand in the love of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Lord help me to remember that nothing
is going to happen to me today
that you and I together can’t handle.
Amen
Poems taken from Christian Poetry Collection compiled by Mary Batchelor, Lion Publishing, 1995.
Cheryl Montgomery
