A daily prayer during this COVID-19 crisis for July 24, 2020

July 24, 2020

A daily prayer during this COVID-19 crisis

During these difficult days, members of the Granite District of the New England Conference are sharing a daily prayer based on the Revised Common Lectionary for the week.
You are welcome to use these in worship or in your own devotions.


Today's PrayerBeing Alive – a Prayer Poem written by Reverend Shannon Diana Keeney 
Inspired by Bible Verses from the Lectionary Romans 8:26-39 and also from Acts 20.7-12
 
You and I are no deity
Our lives pass with astounding brevity
Being Alive
Is not dependent on our corporeal reality
“Awake” is no byproduct of our innate humanity
Being Alive
Means knowing breathing and living are no synonymity
Instead it is embracing endless choices, possibilities, and spontaneity
Being Alive
Is saying to the world “see Jesus in me” instead of living in mindless invisibility
It’s letting the Spirit shake your soul into community blinding luminosity
Being Alive
Pushes us beyond our robotic & lethargic personality
to becoming dreamers and doers grabbing days with vivacity
Being Alive
Is defying a day of anxiety stopping its perpetual fear captivity 
Instead it is standing up and saying “my hope has imperishability!”
Being Alive
Is knowing we live in dangerous times right here in the city
But trusting we can overcome with God, caution, masks, and amity
Being Alive
Means thinking and supporting neighbors in this time of epidemicity 
Guiding your friends toward peace and serenity 
Being Alive
Encourages us to embrace, even now, our divine right of creativity 
Not to succumb to cyber bullying, judgement, and societal negativity
Being Alive
Teaches us just because we have blessed mortality
Doesn’t mean we inherit heavenly morality
Being Alive
Tells us God gives us a natural loving capacity
But the world locks some from other opportunity and possibility
Being Alive
Asks you do you face the morning with privileged tranquility
or rise up to shake the foundations of inequality
Being Alive
Challenges us to stop claiming deniability
And realize we might have some serious culpability
Being Alive
Tells us our planet, words, and actions all have gravity
Embracing God instead of hostility leads our actions into positivity
Being Alive
Is listening to the Good News as a source for our activity
Hearing and having the Biblical stories shape us all clergy and laity
Being Alive
Can be us right now in our present entity
All it takes is embracing faith with a little extra tenacity
Being Alive
Is knowing we are more than conquerors through him who offered us charity
We are disciples serving a masters who cares with audacity 
Being Alive
Is what I choose because I am convinced neither death, life, angels, rulers, or polity
Powers, height, depth, or anything will separate me from my trinity. 

Rev. Shannon Diana Keeney, First UMC Littleton, NH; Granite District