God of Wealth and Release,
You have given me everything:
the shoes on my feet,
the watch on my wrist,
the air in my lungs.
My very life
depends on your abundance.
You are Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord Who Provides:
you provided the ram for Abraham and Isaac.
You gave your attention to Hagar,
who gave you a name: You Are
The God Who Sees Me.
God of Gifts and Many Names,
Please forgive me when
I muck up the flow.
Just as you are Verb
and Trillium Dance,
you want your gifts to move.
Where there is hoarding and gunk,
clogged pipes and rotting piles,
please bring release.
God of Jubilee, I pray for reset.
I pray for sabbath rest
for land and hands cracked
from too much labor.
I pray for the Good News
of open palms and outstretched fingers,
especially for hands
exhausted from grasping and grip.
I pray for composted debt ledgers.
I pray for the deer, ants,
and sheep who spread
trillium and clover seeds
in unseen bowels:
You want your gifts to move.
Tension released from my shoulders! Thank you for yielding to this outpouring.
I’m so glad to hear that, Kristine! It can be so helpful for me sometimes to notice how words (and prayers) sit in my body. I’m so glad to hear you experienced release through this prayer for release.
“You want your gifts to move.” This is lovely. Money is so hard to make sense of in our society of ungenerous abundance. This poem is a good word.
Thank you so much, Heather, I appreciate that. I take inspiration from the book “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde, who talked about the importance of gifts staying in motion. Fellow Redbud Carlene Hill Byron introduced me to it. And the phrase “ungenerous abundance” is so apt!