Lent Prayer

I read this prayer from Walter Brueggemann’s book of prayers “Awed To Heaven, Rooted In Earth” yesterday:

“Loss is indeed our gain”

The pushing and the shoving of the world is endless.
We are pushed and shoved.
And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving
in our great anxiety.
And in the middle of that
you have set down your beloved suffering son
who was like a sheep led to slaughter
who opened not his mouth.
We seem not able,
so we ask you to create the spaces in our life
where we may ponder his suffering
and your summons for us to suffer with him,
suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.
So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,
when we are driven to denial-
not to notice the suffering,
not to engage it,
not to acknowledge it.
So be that way of truth among us
that we should not deceive ourselves.
That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.
We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.
Amen.

Most of this book is posted here if you want to read more:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RMQxm2o0-zUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Walter+inauthor:Brueggemann