A Prayer for Pentecost

Come Holy Spirit!

Come to this traveler, now re-entering home, seeking your wisdom for ways to respond to the sights, sounds, sensations in your world–so variegated, so abundant, so fragile. Come, energize my will to go with the wind on which you soar– to discover truth, to expose lies, to refresh weariness, to act in thousands of tiny acts of kindness and truth-telling that will set people free, make them whole and bring them into Sacred Presence.

Come, Spirit, to the communities of the faithful around the world: to those who are beleaguered and bereft by wars, violence, venality and evil around them; Spirit, bring them hope and wholeness, protection and healing. To those gatherings where the future seems to be in the balance, bring them deep trust in the faithfulness of your Presence and Power to do all that seem impossible, but is so needful. To those who are well-established but want to be your presence more tellingly in the changing, evolving post-modern world of this moment, give them imagination to be themselves, always being reformed, in ways that are compassionate, effective and transformative to the cities, towns, countrysides in which they live.

Come, Spirit, to the people of this world who with the power of principalities, money and status, make decisions that could bring life and well-being to so many who have no power. Invade their protective bubbles of self-interest, acquisitiveness, blindness and deafness to the needs of the world. Change their consciousness to include all those whom Jesus loves–the poor, the broken, the broken-hearted and the difficult to love. Shape the will of the powerful to sense and to make happen the things that make for the common good, the need for the stitching up the tears in the fabric of the world.

Come, Holy Spirit, to the women of the world–who are the foremost in the catalog of the vulnerable, the unprotected, the victimized. Come to the ones who are in jeopardy, by virtue of their gender. Fill them with You life-giving Self that allows them to see and to know in their bones that they are made in the image of God, and as such are precious, worthy and valuable. Come to those who live in cultures of life, work and worship where they are denigrated, excluded, berated; comfort them and empower them to be and to do all that you have created them to be and to do.

Come, Holy Spirit, to this fragile earth that is the home for human beings. Breathe on its parched places, its barren places, its despoiled places, its diminishing places, and bring new life through the tender loving care of your human watchers, care-givers and restorers. Let all of your creation bloom and grow the way you intended. Stir us human stewards to be mindful, careful, open-hearted and willing to share what the earth provides for us.

Come, Spirit, come to our flagging spirits: fill us with energy, shape us with compassion, heal our wounds, empower us for You Love in the world.

Amen!