2023-01-13 A Prayer: Anointed Frame

O Lord, characteristics are taken from us. We long to be known for aspects and attributes. We had power in a nurtured place, and thought so much of who we were in You was a reflection on our quietude, our passed-over peace, the investment gently of people we met. Yet somehow You ask us to motor on in a crash landing, nurture amounting to nothing but a greater ridicule, a crazy bargain just like the one You made on the Cross: to find our identity in slim pickings. To find our identity in facets of who we are taken from us, cruelly, jocularly, irreverently.

See everyone smirk, yet they too have their coherent zones. They have their fabric of parental input and workplace affirmation and friendly charisms. See how we are in no way sinning, reassure us, when we bring our identity in You, in friends, in family, to Your altar as a portrait of just who we are, who this gift we bring truly is. Now we are mocked and now we are challenged to rebuild what was lost, as intrinsic to who we are.

See us formed by gentle investment, and so particularities merge with our deeds in the flesh, with our thoughts in idealism, with our loving shelters called “Friendship”. See how we do not falsely divorce these interconnected matters, but allow our identity to be purely spiritual even if scoffers claim we are proud of our chastity or our virgin deeds in the flesh. We play no foolish games, but know all people are wrapped up in how they have been treated and respected; this is our soul on display; You teach us about Yourself via our own insights into who we are. Help us always to start anew, to rebuild what was torn down, to have generational patience to preach a Gospel, ultimately, that is immune to loss and forlorn despondency. For You lost, so terribly, Your anointed frame and person on that Cross.

We pray all this in Your Name, Amen.