Gather Me To Be With You

It was a beautiful sunset last evening and somehow when that happens on a Friday evening I think a little more deeply about Sabbath. The wonder envelopes and the relief settles. The beauty of the Sabbath reassures. This Sabbath the Gospel reminds us that when 2 or more gather in Christ’s name God will be in the midst of them. “Gather” has become a word employed differently in these times of social distancing and protest. Gathering oneself is something we often forget. This prayer by Ted Loder reorients me and us to Sabbath “gathering” with and for the One who reconciles all things into divine unity.              

Gather me to be with you

O God, gather me now to be with you as you are with me.

Soothe my tiredness, quiet my fretfulness, curb my aimlessness, relieve my compulsiveness, let me be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release me from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly, from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip, that I may be open to receiving what you give, to risking something genuinely new, to learning something refreshingly different.

O God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

Forgive me for claiming so much for myself that I leave no room for gratitude: for confusing exercises in self-importance with acceptance of self-worth: for complaining so much of my burdens that I become a burden; for competing against others so insidiously that I stifle celebrating them and receiving your blessing through their gifts.

O God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

Keep me in touch with myself, with my needs, my anxieties, my angers, my pains, my corruptions, that I may claim them as my own rather than blame them on someone else.

O Lord, deepen my wounds into wisdom, shape my weaknesses into compassion; gentle my envy into enjoyment, my fear into trust, my guilt into honesty, my accusing fingers into tickling ones.

O God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

From: Guerillas Of Grace-Prayers For The Battle, by Ted Loder