SOUL SURMISE

PRAYERS FOR THE SEASON OF CREATION

Lough Neagh... environmentally damaged...

 

Churches are currently observing a Season of Creation and so to launch it I asked David and Sheila McNeill to pray us into it. This is their beautiful script. 

 

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of your wonderful creation.

Thank you for flowers which appear in spring and summer, filling the countryside with colour and beauty. For primroses and violets, meadowsweet and honeysuckle, water lilies and ragged robin.

Thank you for our recent Fitzroy trip to Rathlin Island, where we enjoyed sunshine, fellowship and the beautiful landscape decorated with purple heather alongside golden gorse.

Thank you for the huge diversity of fauna we see around us - for all animal life, feeding, breeding and living in the land, sea and sky. Thank you for squirrels and foxes, kingfishers and ravens, lizards and tadpoles.

For mini-beasts which fascinate us with their stunning detail - for the wings of a butterfly, the spots on a ladybird, the stripes on a bee and the dazzling dance of a dragonfly.

Thank you for habitats, which enable each creature and plant to thrive - for water, soil, sand and rocks, for temperature, humidity and aspect – each contributing to create environmental niches suited to sustain a wonderfully rich biodiversity.

Thank you for our unique Irish habitats, for fields, meadows, boglands, our coastline, dunes, waterways, mountains, valleys and precious woodlands.

Thank you for our hedgerows which border fields and roads, for blackthorn, hawthorn, rose, holly, spindle and crab apple, creating green corridors across the countryside for birds and animals to live and travel safely.

Thank you for our waterways, teeming with life in and on the water, and for the banks clothed with plants and trees. We are saddened to see Lough Neagh and our river highways marred by the growth of blue-green algae. And we pray for wisdom for those seeking to restore these jewels of our environment.

We pray for the farming community, the stewards of our countryside. We pray that they would have sustainable livelihoods where the harvesting and restoring of the earth’s resources is balanced, and fragile habitats are protected for wildlife.

We pray for the fishing community, tasked with dipping into your oceans for food. We pray for the responsible control of fishing methods and for fishing rights to provide food and maintain the beauty and balance of sea life.

We pray for those with political responsibility to protect and maintain our environment. Help Andrew Muir, our environment minister, in consultation with farming and wildlife experts, to make wise decisions and to implement the necessary changes. 

Finally, Lord, we pray for ourselves. Help us to live gratefully and tread lightly in your majestic, yet fragile, world.

Amen.

SURMISING (AND PRAYER FOR) THE SOUTHPORT STABBINGS

I cannot get these wee girls out of my head. So lovely. So innocent. So excited. Having such fun. Such long lives ahead of them. 

And their parents. Oh their poor torn up parents. Who couldn't see how it could happen or see how they can live on with what has happened.  

 

Dark strikes light

Horror kills fun

Evil massacres dance

Dark strikes light

We are left with the bloody scene of the unbelievable

In the security cordon of the unfathomable

In the rest of our lives confusion

Mystery.

 

Mysteries

Intrigue in the novel and film

But in reality

Their crashing in on our lives

Smashes our hearts to pieces

The shards blow out from family homes

Across communities

Cutting deep.

 

Today you grieve in the mystery

The mystery of badness

The mystery of randomness

The mystery of why you

The mystery of never being explained

Yet having to learn to live in that mystery.

 

I believe in another mystery

The mystery of goodness

The mystery of love

The mystery of comfort

Jesus called the Holy Spirit a comforter

So, I pray for you

That in the mystery of why

In the mystery of what

You will know the mystery of how

Comfort can

Against the odds 

Reach into the depths of your broken heart

And mysteriously give you resilience

As you walk into the grief

Of the days and years to come

God have mercy.

 

 

 

PRAYERS FOR TWELFTH PARADES

Lord we come before the God of peace

Of love and of grace

We worship you as holy

Utterly different than what we know

Or have intuition toward

A God who became one of us

Gave up all

To take on flesh

In a manger

To wash feet

To die, "the Lamb Of God who takes away the sin of the world"

Lord we seek your presence

In this our Twelfth week in Northern Ireland

We pray for safety

Safety for those building bonfires

Those around bonfires

Those who control bonfires

And the neighbourhoods around bonfires

We pray for safety for the security forces and fire service

We also pray for safety for the parades

We pray for grace and tolerance from those marching

And from those in the neighbourhoods they walk through

May there be peace on our streets

And no headlines on our TVs.

 

Lord, we yearn for your presence this week

Lord interrupt and remove the hate and sectariansim

As well as the flags and effigies from the bonfires

Instead Lord, pile up our false caricatures

Our myths and lies and exaggerations of one another

May we stop the cycle

To repent from generations of animosity

To become peacemakers

Lovers of the enemy

Followers of Jesus in the Kingdom of God

Lord interrupt with your love and peace

And that holy justice that lays down its own life for the crimes committed against it

Lord may your will be done

On the streets of Northern Ireland this week

In the name of the King of Kings.

Amen

PENTECOST PRAYER 2024

(A Pentecost Prayer for Fitzroy...)

 

God for the church since Pentecost

Down millennia

For the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

Down a few centuries

And for Fitzroy

Two hundred years a fellowship

One hundred and fifty years in this building

We give you thanks

We celebrate all that it has achieved for you

The harvest brought in

The Kingdom come

We worship and praise you.

 

And we seek your forgiveness

When we got it wrong

When we went up side alleys

When took your name in vain by our confusion

 

God be faithful and just to forgive us

And, on this Pentecost Sunday, then purify us from all unrighteousness

 

God we stand across the world

To worship you

We kneel to pray to you

We long to follow you

 

Lord pour out your Spirit as at Pentecost

Energise us

Refresh us

Fill us with courage

That we might live life and life in all its fulness

 

May we be open to change

To transformation

To new directions

Nimble as old truths 

Need new incarnations 

For different times

Different places

Different needs

 

May we be open to wherever your spirit leads

And may we know your Spirit

Before us, 

Behind us, 

Around us, 

Within us

Our companion

Our counsellor

Our comforter

 

Your grace as the energy to fire discipleship 

In our place

In our time

For your glory through the ages

And on into eternity.

 

God, on this Pentecost Sunday, give us faith to believe the truth

And the right at times to ask why

Give us joy in life’s fulfilment

And the right at times to cry

God give us the strength to carry one another 

And the right at times to be the one who wilts

Give us your grace towards your holiness

And the right to confess our guilt

Father show us a bigger picture

Jesus put grace notes in our song

Holy Spirit put us on a road that’s deeper

And more eternal than the one we’re on.

AMEN

SHIFT OUR FOCUS

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From our own efforts to gather more

To the birds who have enough

From our own attempts to look good

To the roses in their springtime magnificence

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the feeble efforts to change who we are

To surrender intoto what God’s grace longs to make us

From waiting until we are good enough for God

To having his strength made perfect in our weakness

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the selfishness of the thrill of a moment

To the usefulness of things that last forever

From the slavery of the things that we see

To the freedom of living in the blessings unseen

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the love we are craving to get

To the service we are zealous to give

From a holiness that feeds our self righteousness

To a Godliness that feeds the world

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

MY PRAYERS FOR THE CHURCH AT PAUL LUTTON'S ORDINATION...

This is my prayer at Paul Lutton's ordination and installation in St John's, Newtownbreda on January 26th 2024... Many of you kindly said how helpful it was so I thought I'd post

 

Loving God

We pray for your church tonight

Your Church across the world

Your Presbyterian Church in Ireland

Your Newtownbreda (St John’s) 

 

We pray for ministers

For passion in their preaching

Wisdom in their teaching

For cultural discernment

For tender compassion

For clarity of vision

For the Holy Spirit’s inspiration

For the humility of Jesus 

Who was the God of the manger, the donkey, the towel and the cross

 

We pray for elders

To play their role

With shepherd hearts

That they will watch over the flock with sensitivity and care

That Christlike service will be their prayerful longing and testimony

To the church and the world

 

Tonight Lord

We pray for Paul and Emma and Esther and Daniel particularly

Bind them tighter together as Paul’s vocation shifts and starts afresh

 

May Paul find his place here in Newtownbreda

Working and honing the wonderful gifts that you have given him

May he not be forced up blind alleys for traditions sake

But be set free to lead imaginatively and courageously in the NOW

Leading this community of faith into the future

Lord may this congregation let Lutton be Lutton

We pray for Emma and Esther and Daniel

They are not called, or installed tonight

Yet they will be crucial to Paul’s ministry

May they be allowed to find their place in this body of believers

Finding and using their own special gifts and personalities

But never being forced to find gifts they haven’t been given

Or do things that would corner or burden their own particular discipleship

 

God, bind this little family in your tenderest care

Wrap them in resilience and courage and love

That from that core they would be a blessing to this church

And neighbourhood and city.

 

Lord tonight is a wonderful, 

A celebratory night for this congregation

But tomorrow and the years down the road 

Are where Paul will need that smile, 

That clap on the back 

And that sense of being cherished, valued and supported

May the elders and congregation of Newtownbreda actively continue to do that from this night forward.

 

And Lord, may all of us remember our calling to follow you and to do that in the community of Church.

Send us humbly to follow you wherever we worship and serve…

In Jesus name

Amen 

FITZROY PRAYERS ON CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY

(Prayer prayed in Fitzroy on Christ The King Sunday, November 26, 2023)

 

God

On Christ The King Sunday

We worship Jesus as our King

We remember those words 

From his own prayer

“Thy Kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth

As it is in heaven”.

 

So God, we pray for Christ The King’s reign

His kingdom and will

 

In our parliaments

In our cabinet offices

In our war rooms

In our refugee camps

And hostage prisons

 

In our cities

Our towns

Our villages

On our streets

Up our alleyways

Across our housing estates

Along our Avenues

And into our cul-de-sacs

 

In our factories

In our shopping malls

In our school

And Universities

Our call Centres

 

In our gyms

Our golf clubs

Our sports pitches

And hotels and bars

 

In our homes

In our families

Our Residential homes

Our homeless shelters

In our Churches 

 

God, we long for Christ The King’s will

Interrupting

Transforming

Shining light

Holding out hope

 

So, King Jesus show us a vision

Of how the world looks to you

And how it might look here and now

Lift us off our knees

To follow you 

In bringing it in.

 

In Christ the King’s name

Amen.

DON't BEAT YOURSELF UP... TURN UP AND...

This was Chris Blake's reflection at Fitzroy's Passion Worship event on Sunday November 19th 2023... I thought it needed shared... Thank you Chris for the permission...

 

He is here - where 2 or 3 are gathered together in His name

• His love is far bigger than we can imagine - we can’t escape it, as that last

song said in our highs and in our lows he is there loving us

• He is further beyond our understanding than we can dream

• Before you were conceived he knew you and loved you

Lord we worship you

But sometimes we just can’t:

And It’s OK when you can’t respond.

It’s Ok when you can’t understand.

It’s OK even when you can’t believe.

Don’t beat yourself up

Just turn up

Tell God you can’t

Allow Him to answer

And maybe worship will come

At the darkest time in my life when my first wife died I could do none of

those things and I had the most extraordinary experience of my faith life.

I was held - I knew “The peace that passes all understanding” - it was way

beyond understanding - I was so angry at God…

In the depth of your pain, He is seeking you out and His patience and

perseverance won’t let you go

Don’t beat yourself up

Just turn up

Tell God you can’t

Allow Him to answer

And maybe worship will comeAt times it isn’t that dramatic:

Life is just very busy

Life is just very ordinary

Worship, well worship just gets left out - there’s no time, no energy

He is seeking you out and His patience and perseverance won’t let you go

Don’t beat yourself up

Just turn up

Tell God you can’t

Allow Him to answer

And maybe worship will come

Church is boring, the band’s not great, I can’t sing those songs and the

congregation

Are all a bit weird

where 2 or 3 are gathered together in His name - People who share in His

forgiveness and love are gathered, He is here, His Spirit is with us.

Don’t beat each other up

He is here

Just turn up

Tell God you can’t

Argue with the song

Allow Him to answer

And maybe worship will comeSometimes the world seems so bleak, so dark and full of pain. Everything

seems to be going the wrong way…

and worship and even faith itself seems at the edge of possibility.

And then a light shines in - as with the extraordinary prayer of lament and

faith from Bethlehem Bible College this week - expressing trust in God’s

loving presence at a time of utter darkness in the devastation in Gaza.

A light shone in at other times:

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer had faith despite the darkness of the Jewish holocaust.

- Desmond Tutu had faith despite the darkness of the murderous apartheid

regime in South Africa…

- Father Alec Reid had faith despite the darkness of the Northern Ireland

Troubles - go and see the film about him on Wednesday evening.

Don’t give up

Just turn up

Tell God you can’t

Tell Him of the darkness of the world - pour out the sadness

Be lifted by the faith of others

And maybe worship will come

REFLECTION FOR WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY

 

Suicide Prevention Day

Two things fill my thoughts.

My first thoughts are with dear friends who lost their amazing son to suicide eighteen months ago

Without warning. 

Without seeming reason, Daniel took his own life. 

Regularly it feels that I am hearing the news afresh and I cannot believe it. It cannot beam my heart screams within me.

But it is

To sense the daily pain of Daniel’s loss in the depths of his parent’s hearts has been heart breaking for us.

My thoughts are with them right now

My second thought takes me to Rome. 

I am standing beside The Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica. 

My friend, Rab, had spoken to me about it a few years ago. Rab would describe himself as “relatively agnostic but interested in many aspects across religions” so when he shared with me how taken he was with the Pieta I took note.

His wife was investigating the Basilica and Rab kind of drifted over and caught sight of the Pieta. 

It is the work of Michelangelo. 

A beautiful 15th century sculpture in marble. 

The Pieta depicts Mary holding her dead son, Jesus, in her arms. 

It moved Rab to tears. 

My experience was similar. 

We had had a private audience with Pope Francis earlier in the day. 

I needed time to surmise that and all the things that he said. 

We went through the Vatican Museum and much as it was impressive I was still pondering the events in Pope Francis’ private library. 

My wife, Janice went off to marvel at the art and beauty of St. Peter’s. 

I was at a loose end and remembered - Rab’s Pieta. 

I found Fr Martin and asked him where it was. 

He took me over to it 

I immediately felt what Rab had felt.

We encouraged Janice over to join us and all three of us stood..

And wept. 

The theologically squeamish might shout, “It is not in the Bible.” No, it is not. That does not mean that between the cross where Mary stood watching her son die and the tomb he was laid in that she didn’t cradle his body.

However, fact is not the point. 

This is not theological. 

This is artistic. 

Whatever the facts, Mary did watch her soon die.

She went through her valley of the shadow. 

She experienced that trauma. 

Michelangelo expresses that experience of Mary’s…

Beautifully… 

Poignantly… 

Painfully.

Janice and I were remembering our dear friends, Daniel’s parents. 

It is not the order of things for a parent to cradle their child’s body. 

Our friends experienced it. They said that they could have held him forever. 

Michelangelo captured their heartache.

Fr Martin knew where our hearts were…

His heart added his own experience of far too many young suicides in west Belfast. 

All of our tears, as we stood before The Pieta, were deeply felt. 

Fr Martin suggested a prayer and I prayed for my friends and then all the other parents who had experienced what Mary went through. 

The love and sorrow that mingles. 

Again, this is something of the Gospel story that understands our humanity and our brokenness.

Let us remember those who have taken their own lives 

and those they have left behind 

and make a contribution towards Prevention.

PRAYING FOR DRUMCREE 25, BONFIRES & PARADES

It is 25 years of the Drumcree standoff. An Orange Lodge wanting to continue a march. A Catholic community not welcoming them through. We want to pray for safety at Drumcree and over all the Twelfth Parades. We want to pray for contact, listening, negotiation and compromise where there are contentious issues. We encourage the Orange Order as they attempt to rid their parades of anti social behaviour. 

I remember the days when my summer began when my dad drove under the arch that my Granda built. I remember watching the bonfire from the window of my first flat even though I was too young to go down to it. I remember watching my Granda march.

Since then sectarianism has hijacked a cultural celebration. I hope the best of our Northern Irishness comes out this week in a peaceful passing off of parades and no effigies or flags on the bonfires.

Here is a poem and then a prayer...

 

Strike the match of supposed tradition

Listen for what the flames tell

In every flag or effigy burning

There’s a crackle of the devil’s yell

This is no cultural celebration

This is the hate of the clan

Sectarianism in petrol and wood

The fires of hell being fanned

 

Instead,  take all those empty pallets

Old tyres, their tread worn thin

Pile our pride there, way up high

With all our arrogance and sin

Hurl on myths that we’ve been told

All those lies and exaggerations

The caricatures we paint ourselves

That cripple our children and nation

Watch the sparks of repentance fall 

Our Troubles burn in the flickering light

Warmed by loving of even enemies

On a glorious bonfire night. 

 

Let us pray.

Lord we come before the God of peace

Of love and of grace

We worship you as holy

Utterly different than what we know

Or have intuition toward

A God who became one of us

Gave up all

To take on flesh

In a manger

To wash feet

To die, "the Lamb Of God who takes away the sin of the world"

Lord we seek your presence

In this our Twelfth week in Northern Ireland

We pray for safety

Safety for those building bonfires

Those around bonfires

Those who control bonfires

And the neighbourhoods around bonfires

We pray for safety for the security forces and fire service

We also pray for safety for the parades

We pray for grace and tolerance from those marching

And from those in the neighbourhoods they walk through

May there be peace on our streets

And no headlines on our TVs.

 

Lord, we yearn for your presence this week

Lord interrupt and remove the hate and sectariansim

As well as the flags and effigies from the bonfires

Instead Lord, pile up our false caricatures

Our myths and lies and exaggerations of one another

May we stop the cycle

To repent from generations of animosity

To become peacemakers

Lovers of the enemy

Followers of Jesus in the Kingdom of God

Lord interrupt with your love and peace

And that holy justice that lays down its own life for the crimes committed against it

Lord may your will be done

On the streets of Northern Ireland this week

In the name of the King of Kings.

Amen

 

 

It is 25 years of the Drumcree standoff. An Orange Lodge wanting to continue a march. A Catholic community not welcoming them through. We want to pray for safety at Drumcree and over all the Twelfth Parades. We want to pray for contact, listening, negotiation and compromise where there are contentious issues. We encourage the Orange Order as they attempt to rid their parades of anti social behaviour. 

I remember the days when my summer began when my dad drove under the arch that my Granda built. I remember watching the bonfire from the window of my first flat even though I was too young to go down to it. I remember watching my Granda march.

Since then sectarianism has hijacked a cultural celebration. I hope the best of our Northern Irishness comes out this week in a peaceful passing off of parades and no effigies or flags on the bonfires.

Here is a poem and then a prayer...

 

Strike the match of supposed tradition

Listen for what the flames tell

In every flag or effigy burning

There’s a crackle of the devil’s yell

This is no cultural celebration

This is the hate of the clan

Sectarianism in petrol and wood

The fires of hell being fanned

 

Instead,  take all those empty pallets

Old tyres, their tread worn thin

Pile our pride there, way up high

With all our arrogance and sin

Hurl on myths that we’ve been told

All those lies and exaggerations

The caricatures we paint ourselves

That cripple our children and nation

Watch the sparks of repentance fall 

Our Troubles burn in the flickering light

Warmed by loving of even enemies

On a glorious bonfire night. 

 

Let us pray.

Lord we come before the God of peace

Of love and of grace

We worship you as holy

Utterly different than what we know

Or have intuition toward

A God who became one of us

Gave up all

To take on flesh

In a manger

To wash feet

To die, "the Lamb Of God who takes away the sin of the world"

Lord we seek your presence

In this our Twelfth week in Northern Ireland

We pray for safety

Safety for those building bonfires

Those around bonfires

Those who control bonfires

And the neighbourhoods around bonfires

We pray for safety for the security forces and fire service

We also pray for safety for the parades

We pray for grace and tolerance from those marching

And from those in the neighbourhoods they walk through

May there be peace on our streets

And no headlines on our TVs.

 

Lord, we yearn for your presence this week

Lord interrupt and remove the hate and sectariansim

As well as the flags and effigies from the bonfires

Instead Lord, pile up our false caricatures

Our myths and lies and exaggerations of one another

May we stop the cycle

To repent from generations of animosity

To become peacemakers

Lovers of the enemy

Followers of Jesus in the Kingdom of God

Lord interrupt with your love and peace

And that holy justice that lays down its own life for the crimes committed against it

Lord may your will be done

On the streets of Northern Ireland this week

In the name of the King of Kings.

Amen