"shut-down places"

To be honest, my thoughts today are not so different from what they were two weeks ago...

I am still taken aback by the enormity of all that I am incapable of doing, incapable of being.

On my heart today is:

*Japan

*Lybia

*Yemen

*Ivory Coast

*Afghanistan

And those are just the countries on the front page

And in my life I am learning daily:

*how selfish I can be

*how much I think of myself

*how little I am actually grateful for

*how often I worry about things that don't really matter

And I want so desperately to change those things

I'm left with not a lot to say, again. Other than I need the Holy Spirit, the world needs a Savior, and we all have a lot to be on our knees for...

"It does not come easy to us to imagine that you

closed the womb of mother Hannah

and thereby foreclosed the future for a time.

And yet, we can name in your presence a myriad of shut-down places around us...

those shut down in poverty and despair,

those shut down in fear and in rage,

those shut down by abuse and violence,

too hurt to speak, too frightened to appear, t00 scarred to dance.

And closer, our own shut downs:

in anxiety, in resentment, in pretense,

too weary to care, too greedy to share, too much of us for our neighbor.

These are not all your doing, we confess.

But you are the God who opens all shut downs
by your power, you give futures,

by your goodness, you give hope,by your mercy, you make new.

So we bid you this day come to our shut down places and give birth anew.
We pray through the Easter opening of the Friday shut downs. Amen."

-Walter Bruggeman