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Greening God,
For fresh buds on trees, tender green shoots, ephemerals flowering, birds returning and nesting, We give thanks. Our hearts, too, are opening, blossoming, dancing and singing praise for life, for colour, fertility, birth and rebirth! Amen.
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God, thank you for this morning. May I be as joyful and enthusiastic as Robins. May I enter into this day with anticipation and energy like Cardinals. Provide me with what I need, just as you do for House Sparrows, and let me trust that is enough. I praise you together with my beloved neighbours whose voices I hear this day: Mourning Doves, Northern Flickers, Canada Geese, Red-winged Blackbirds, Crows, and Goldfinches. Amen. We gathered on Easter morning at twilight - the time between the two lights. The moon was setting behind us as we gathered on the east-facing slope awaiting the rising sun. The dawn chorus of birds provided music for our prelude. Our text was John 20:1-18. Step Chandler Burns, of Pastors in Exile, shared these words before we spend time 'wandering and wondering' and watching for the sunrise. "This morning, like every new day, Christ is alive among us. Each day, God is doing a new thing and inviting us to bring our faith and our questions and enter into the new life being made among us. So this morning, and all mornings, believe the gospel. The Good News is that new life is possible. Seek the new thing God is doing, whether you understand it or not. Resurrection is here and happening among us every day: the sun rises, the snow melts, the animals and birds sing to the morning, the cold gives way to the sun, the cycles of life and death keep moving. People heal and reconcile and learn and grow. Relationships mend, we’re made new. Even when we don’t want to be. Even when we’re not at our best, even when we’re hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Or when we don’t understand quite yet. This morning, you’re invited to take in the morning. Listen to the birds and the animals, the waking of the earth. Take in the new life, resurrection among us. And believe, or question it. Jesus will meet you there. May it be so." What ways are you experiencing resurrection? Where are you seeing signs of new life? Whether we believe easily, or are skeptical, Christ meets us in sunrises and in rain, in honking geese and songbirds, in our day to day lives. Halleluiah! God of springtime,
We thank you for the strength of the sun warming the soil and our souls. We rejoice at the drip, drip, drip of ice melting off branches. We celebrate the sweet sap rising from a winter underground. We listen for the songs of feathered travelers returning from the South. We even smile at snow turning to slush turning to mud. Bless the world rising from its winter rest. Bless this in between, messy time. Bless our anticipation and our longing. Bless the melting snow as it seeps deep down to roots, bulbs and seeds, all ready and waiting. As spring moves in and winter lets go, awaken us to new life and melt away the crusty, frozen places within us. Plant in us hope, deep and resilient hope, that will rise up strong and rooted. Amen Outside the flimsy walls my body feels the chill of this new day. I could have stayed under the covers, cozy and comfortable, dozing and content. But out here, in the open, I awaken - here is a living world where flowers dot the forest floor, breeze makes trees dance, dew sparkles on grass - delightful and gracious hosts to us visiting guests, gifts so easily missed by us indoor beings. God of wild beings and wild places, thank you for the birds and their exquisite songs, the variety of green, refreshing mornings that make us feel alive, awed and amazed at the world beyond our sheltered lives. May our encounters with places of wild beauty and the creatures who call them home expand our hearts, minds, imaginations. May we be open to your expansive presence, and may it expand our love and care for all creation. May we take time to pay attention to and find delight in the lives of those with feather & fur, fins & scales, and learn their names, sounds, habitats, and needs. May we remember you created and blessed them, and that you made an everlasting covenant with the land, all wild creatures, and us. May we love the world in each small detail, and also in its wonderfully complex fullness. May we tread lightly and leave no trace. Bless our summer travels and encounters. May they transform us into new creations. Amen - Wendy Janzen  Blessed be the sun's warming power
energizing all that exists. Blessed be the joyous flowers raising their beautiful faces to the sun. Blessed be the the nesting birds singing in each morning. Blessed be the vernal ponds nurseries of new life. Blessed be my place within this beloved community, giving and receiving the gifts of life. - Wendy Janzen Easter sunrise prayer
Divine Presence, Midwife of spring: Awaken us to your presence within and around us this holy morning. May we be alive to the mystery and wonder of this new day, and be reminded that each sunrise is a proclamation of resurrection. Amen. - Wendy Janzen  For Good Friday
It is finished. Cut off. Ended. No more. Lifeless. It's body brought down, but for what reason? What threat? To what end? Laying on the forest floor. Humbled. Hollowed. Hallowed. It's story,it's legacy, it's outpouring, is not finished. - Wendy Janzen Wild Wind of the Spirit,
on this Pentecost day we revel in the ways your presences lives and moves among us and through us - inspiring us, challenging us, unsettling us. May we be open to the winds of change, welcoming and bending to new ways of being. May we embrace and celebrate the lively and generative energy of this day, empowering us to be agents of transformation in our spheres of influence, voices for the voiceless, and visionaries for a new future. Amen. - Wendy Janzen God of Spring,
of roots and growth, of vibrancy and veriditas: Bless this time of planting. As we dig our fingers into rich soil, wiggling and delighting in the damp warm, earth, we remember that we are earthlings. Bless our connection with the the land, with the water that supports all life, with these seeds we bury beneath the surface trusting that they will germinate and grow and nourish our bodies. Bless the fertility of the earth, the micronutrients, the compost, the earthworms, and the pollinators. Bless our intentions to be good gardeners: may we give and receive, work and wait, with humility. And bless these seeds: help us to hold them with reverence and to see in them the promise of sustenance and life. Amen. - Wendy Janzen |
AuthorReflections, poetry, prayers, photos, and resources written by Wendy Janzen unless otherwise noted. Archives
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