One of my favourite authors is Armistead Maupin. If you haven’t indulged in his ‘Tales of the City’ anthology then I insist you begin your journey as soon as possible! His writing is very important in terms of exploring themes of inclusion, community, love, connection and ultimately what its means to be human.
I was re-reading his book ‘Babycakes’. In it two characters are discussing foxes and how they prowl the suburbs looking for food.
They describe the foxes’ situation as such; “They raid peoples garbage cans… They don’t belong in the wilds, and they don’t belong in the city either. They’re trapped in the mess we made. They know it too.”
This notion of creatures being trapped in the mess humans have made really resonated with me. It made me wonder, do we also trap each other in the messes we make?
Let us go to God in prayer…
We thank you, heavenly parent, that you made us as humans, not robots, and gave us free will and choice and a world of options. Each day we wake up and are faced with millions of decisions; what to eat, what to wear, how to spend each moment, who to speak to, how to speak, who to interact with and how to interact with them. We thank you for this free will which makes our lives so exciting, so adventurous, so enriched.
We thank you Holy Spirit that you can be with us and inspire and guide us for each choice that we make. We can reflect on the wisdom you instil in us, we can consider thoughtfully each time we act, how will this affect me, how will it affect others?
Sometimes our choices do not pan out well, we make mistakes, we make a mess. We thank you Jesus that each time we make a mistake we can come to you for forgiveness and through grace know that our mistakes are washed away, the slate is wiped clean. Through grace and unconditional love, each time we make a mistake and make a mess of things we are empowered to move forward, stand up, start afresh, move on. Jesus continue to give us wisdom to learn and reflect each time we make a mistake. Give us the strength to keep trying despite our mistakes and the mess we make.
But what about the mess we make? Holy Spirit so often in our lives we make the same mistakes again and again and again and we make a mess of things. We fail to to tend to this mess. We leave that mess, only for us to stumble across it another time. We leave that mess for others to deal with.
God, empower us to deal with each mess before we simply smile and move on. Those who love us, those people in our communities and workplaces, they are affected by the mess we make. Make us contrite and humble each time we make a mess, push us to stay a little longer and ensure all those who are involved are able to move on too.
We thank you Lord that through your love, compassion and mercy, the past is indeed the past. But we pause a moment to consider our journeys so far. The good times and the bad, the mistakes we have made, the mess we have left. Let us call to mind those places where we haven’t quite dealt with the mess yet, haven’t tidied up properly. Who have we left there, trapped in that mess? Where do we need to go back, revisit, check that others have been able to move on too, check that others aren’t still living with the repercussions of the mistakes we have made?
Jesus, where we find those people still trapped in the mess we have made, let us turn to you in prayer and ask for your guidance and wisdom as to how best we can help them. Push us to offer them the love and support we should have done a long time ago. May we act to set them free from the mess we made.
Now more than ever we are aware of the world around us and how it is responding. As a collective may we take stock of what we see, may we be mindful of the messes we have made of this world so far. Now is the time to act, to tidy up, to clean our world and create a new way of being that doesn’t trap other creatures, other people. Lord give us a way of being that focuses on always acting to set free, to liberate.
In liberating others, may we be liberated today.
Amen!
The Unexpected Prayer 