most hopeful

We are among your called.
We have heard and answered your summons.
You have addressed us in the deep places of our lives.
In responsive obedience we testify,
as we are able, to your truth as it concerns our common life.

We thank you for the call,
for the burden of that call,
for the risk that goes with it,
for the joy of words given us by your growing spirit, and
for the newness that sometimes comes from our word.

We have indeed been in the counsel of your summoning spirit,
and so we know some truth to speak.

But we are, as well, filled with rich imagination of our own,
And our imagination is sometimes matched and overmatched
by our cowardice,
by our readiness to please,
by our quest for well-being.

We are, on most days, a hard mix
of true prophet and wayward voice,
a mix of your call to justice
and our hope for shalom.

Here we are, as we are,
mixed but faithful,
compromised but committed,
anxious but devoted to you.

Use us and our gifts for
your newness that pushed beyond all the we can say or imagine.
We are grateful for words given us;
We are more grateful for your word fleshed among us.