Gratitude for Worship on the Land (Rev. Carmen Retzlaff)
From Rev. Carmen Retzlaff --
New Life Lutheran Church worships outdoors. With no building, we enjoy communion with the seasons, plants, and creatures of the Central Texas Hill Country. Below is a prayer of gratitude for this way of being with God.
The photo above is of a recent morning where migrating butterflies woke and warmed with the sun during our Sunday morning worship. The children were drawn to the butterflies as they began to lift from the grasses. While we heard the word read and proclaimed, we watched our children go to greet our winged friends in the soft dew and sunlight. Our words paled in comparison to the worship they shared, and shared with us.
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Prayer for Worship on the Land
God, we are grateful beyond words. We thank you for this planet, this beautiful blue earth on which we live. We thank you for the miracle of the sun around which we orbit, one planet, one creation, one people, experiencing the slow tilting toward each season. We thank you for the mysterious way the earth spins, bringing sunrise each morning, and for the knowing that each sunset brings light to another part of the globe. We thank you for the animals that peek out at us while we worship, and who share this life with us. We thank you for the plants that grow in the light of the sun, and in the richness of the soil, for their nourishment, shade, their miraculous production of the oxygen we breath, and their beauty. How can we ever thank you enough? We can only breathe, look, listen and pray in awe.
Amen.
