Morning Prayer Monday, 22 February 2021

A Work for Poets
by George Mackay Brown 

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read

That not far from the stone
A well
Might open for way farers

Here is a work for poets –
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence

Good morning and welcome to Morning Prayer

The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept. 

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and for ever.
Amen. 

Breathe in 

Breathe out 

Be still… 

Spirit of Truth
who reveals to us the things of God
we praise your name.

Spirit of Wisdom
who inspires the words we ought to speak
we praise your name.

Spirit of Power
who grants the courage we need to act
we praise your name.

Spirit of Love
who knows our nature and loves us still
we praise your name.
Amen  

Presence

Dear Lord help me to be open to you
for this time as I put aside the cares of this world.
Fill my thoughts with your peace, your love.

Freedom

It is so easy to get caught up
with the trappings of wealth in this life.
Grant, O Lord, that I may be free
from greed and selfishness.
Remind me that the best things in life are free.
Love, laughter, caring and sharing.

Consciousness

Where do I sense hope, encouragement,
and growth areas in my life?
By looking back over the last few months,
I may be able to see which activities and
occasions have produced rich fruit.
If I do notice such areas, I will determine to give
those areas both time and space in the future.

THE WORD OF GOD 

1 John 1: 1- 4 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.  And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We write this to make our joy complete. 

WORDS OF WISDOM 

I listened to a fascinating programme on the BBC World Service yesterday.  It was called the ‘The Climate Question: Can the internet ever be green?’.  The programme argued, that the internet is a worse contributor to climate change than the aviation industry.  Apparently, when someone like the footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, posts an image onto his Instagram account, the energy used is equivalent to that used by 10 households in the UK, over a whole year.  Its all to do with the increasingly enormous amounts of energy used by servers in data centres, some of which are in countries like Ireland, where 60% of energy still comes from fossil fuels.

One of the things that makes most sense to me about Christianity, [there is a link with internet use – bear with me], is that it is deeply relational.  In the beginning the Divine wanted to dwell with the whole of creation.  Jesus the son of God, dwelt on the earth and spoke of dwelling in God and in us.  The whole concept of the Divine in Christianity is one of connection.  The God-head is a dynamic dance of relationships between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; a community of love we are invited into, in real life [IRL].

Christianity is earthy and incarnational.  It inhabits real life; all of it, the good and the beautiful, celebrated; the bad and the messy, transfigured.  We are made for relationship at every level.  We truly flourish when we are together.  For me, this explains why so many are longing to come out of lockdown in order to be with people again.  I hear this longing on the radio, where people speak of the longing to be together, to listen to live music again.

I hear teachers and pupils [most, not all] speaking of that longing in their hope to return to school.  I heard it on a Zoom meeting last week, from residents of Peter church, wishing to come together to celebrate community.  Interestingly, this longing, for so many, has been exacerbated by online or digital fatigue.  We might be able to see each other on a flat screen but that only increases the longing to be with each other.  It’s a longing for the enrichment of real life, warts and all.

My brother-in-law would always say to his kids, when they were younger, ‘Flat screens result in flat brains’.  It’s as if we are also suffering from a flat brain pandemic.  Which brings us back to the World Service programme on the internet and its effects on climate chaos. There is so much that is good about the internet.  The information we can glean.

The sheer visual pleasure of a streamed film in your own living room.  The way we can communicate swiftly and the way that our rural business’s can survive in the market place.  The way it has undoubtedly held our work lives, and family lives together, during lockdown.  However, we also know of the internet’s debilitating effects on public discourse, and how it has hollowed out the high street and thinned out democracy.  Educators and psychologists are concerned about the effects on the poetic imagination and on our ability to reflect deeply and critically.

Now, we are beginning to understand the negative effects on the environment.  A phrase that caught my attention on the programme, ‘The Climate Question’, was; ‘scrolling our way to catastrophe’.  The point being, that we all know how damaging aviation is but we don’t know about the damaging effects of the internet in terms of climate and therefore the whole of creation.  When we come through this Pandemic, I am looking forward to using Zoom for some meetings, as this has the capacity to lesson our carbon footprint, in terms of reducing car miles.

However, I hope the Church will be at the forefront of seeking to critically engage with our use of the digital and virtual world so that we can curtail its flattening effect on human experience and its disastrous effect on the climate.   I long in my heart for church IRL.  To learn more about what you can do to reduce your internet carbon footprint you can listen to ‘The Climate Question’ on the BBC Sounds App using the following link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct0xbc

There’s an irony, after all I have written!

Revd Simon Lockett 

PRAYERS AND INTERCESSIONS 

We pray for the world… 

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer. 

We pray for the universal church of Christ… 

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer. 

We pray for one another and all those known to us… 

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer. 

THE LORD’S PRAYER 

As our Saviour taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.  

Silence… 

May God the provider
of green pastures
and quiet waters
be the peace in our hearts today

May Jesus our guide
on mountain top
and valley deep
be the hope in our hearts today

May the Spirit of truth
and knowledge
comforter and friend
be the strength in our hearts today
Amen 

THE BLESSING 

May the beauty of God
be reflected in your eyes,
the love of God
be reflected in your hands,
the wisdom of God
be reflected in your words,
and the knowledge of God
flow from your heart,
that all might see,
and seeing,  believe
Amen  

Thank you for join us. Have a wonderful day!

Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga