3 November 2021 – Pause & Pray

Every Wednesday at 12pm we invite you to pause & pray with us. Thank you to Chris Paige, who curated and wrote for today’s Pause & Pray.

PRAY:

God our creator. Jesus our redeemer. Spirit our sustainer.

Our bodies are broken, and
Our souls are weary.

Yet we remember:
Even in your blessed resurrection,
You, too, carried the scars of your living.

So we bring to you our flesh and bones, saying
“This is my body”–
Not just our energy and vigor,
But also our broken parts and saggy places.

We bring you all that we are
And all that we are becoming:
Our bruises from falling,
Our embarrassment from failing, and
Our determination to carry on–
An offering
Of shame and pride,
Of hope and despair.

We invite you once again into the heart of our becoming
And ask you to hold our fragments together in your loving embrace.

Amen.

MEDITATE:

“A theology of flesh will not necessarily be metabolized as redemption from fragmentation into wholeness. … Disability is [simply] the transformation of the flesh as it encounters world, … the body’s response over time to its environment. … Bodies are neither whole nor broken, disabled or ablebodied, but simply in a process of becoming.” (Sharon Betcher “The Picture of Health: “Nature” at the Intersection of Disability, Religion and Ecology,” 2015)