Tuesday, September 10, 2013
They Should Be Broken For Ourselves
Christine Sine @ Godspace:
There is a feeling of the prayer of the pharisee about the women with the one coin to this prayer. We cannot let our material well-being blind us to the poverty of our lives. If our hearts are truly broken open to greater capacity, will we not mourn our own sin as much as their poverty? Will we not want to save ourselves from our own issues as much as save others from their material ones?
In point of fact, is this prayer not really a confession? If you must pray such a thing are you not admitting that you are inadequate in your caring? And if we are confessing, should we not be a bit more prostrate?
I fear praying to share the world's despair - I have so much in my own life.
confession prayer stance
God pierce our hearts with your love,This sat wrong with me somehow. It's not that I don;t want to help or pray for the poor - it's more the us/them paradigm this seems to establish. Yes, here in American we have plenty, and yes and yes again there are parts of the world where the poverty is overwhelming. But America is poor too - certainly not materially, but in oh so many other ways.
Break them open into greater capacity,
Break them open,
That we might hold more of the world’s suffering and joy,
That we might share more of the world’s despair and hope.
Lord break our hearts,
As we stand in the gap between what is and what could be,
Break our hearts open to a largeness that holds the possibility of a better future for all the world’s people.
There is a feeling of the prayer of the pharisee about the women with the one coin to this prayer. We cannot let our material well-being blind us to the poverty of our lives. If our hearts are truly broken open to greater capacity, will we not mourn our own sin as much as their poverty? Will we not want to save ourselves from our own issues as much as save others from their material ones?
In point of fact, is this prayer not really a confession? If you must pray such a thing are you not admitting that you are inadequate in your caring? And if we are confessing, should we not be a bit more prostrate?
I fear praying to share the world's despair - I have so much in my own life.
confession prayer stance
