Intercessions: opening worship of the High Leigh Conference 2019
God of compassion, we remember today
Those for whom earthquakes, wind or fire
Has brought chaos and destruction.
For those who have lost everyone and everything they love.
We hold in our hearts and before you, those for whom the future is uncertain because of ill health, precarious relationships, or economic challenge; and those for whom the end of life in near.
And we share in in joy, with those experiencing new birth, new life and fresh starts – full of hope and expectation.
We bring before you our sacred and beautiful planet, teaming with life, renewal and healing forces.
May we do all we can to halt and mitigate the slow death of biodiversity
The continuous assault on what you have made.
God of mystery,
Where are you
When the world flings demands
Like a rain squall at the window,
When the pressure to perform steals us from ourselves,
When grasping for our future leaves us empty handed?
Where are you
When confusion is in heady ascendance,
When digging for surety lacerates and fragments?
Where are you in the fray,
In the tangled threads of feeling with no beginning or end?
God of our depths, be with us.
Do not rescue, but hold us;
Befriend, and reacquaint us
With our roots,
Our core,Our true desires.
Help us to know
How slowly moves the deep;
our connection to earth
and stars,
and the life that is you.
Help us to know
What we carry inside;
a space that does not always, or often,
know its shape
or size,
or what its purpose is.
Help us to know
That beyond our striving and our need
All you are is love,
And all we have is you.
Amen
Alison Webster May 2019