Proper 11 (Year B): Litany for Catching a Break

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My family and I have been in the process of moving houses this summer - not once, but twice. First to a temporary house, then to a permanent one later. Moving can be relentless, exhausting, ungrounding. You sometimes feel like you can’t catch a break: there is always more to do, more problems to solve, more children to comfort (in my case), more lost things to find. For me it’s the capstone to a relentless and exhausting season that started with Covid in March of 2020. So I’m late with the litany this week. Sorry.

And I’m taking some comfort in this week’s Gospel reading. Jesus notices the exhaustion felt by himself and the apostles. “He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” So they all sail away in a boat to try to catch a break. And even then, they can’t. People - beloved people with real and profound needs both spiritual and physical - follow them (Mark 6: 55,56).

“[W]herever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” If Jesus needs a break, in his humanity and therefore limited physical energy, he has to WORK for it - carve it out, prioritize it, make it happen. At least, as I imagine. I’m so grateful for the solidarity here in this text. For the exhausted and run-down. The weary and overdrawn. The ones who are trying to pour from the dregs of a cup. For me and you. Jesus meets us here, where we’re just trying to catch a break.

God, the pace of our lives is sometimes faster than we can keep;
The needs of those around us are sometimes more than we can handle;
The work before us sometimes seems unending;
And the chaos around us is sometimes overwhelming.
We long to pause, to rest.
We thirst for renewal….

Easter 4, Year B (2021): Litany for Love in Action

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Here is the litany I wrote for the last cycle, Year B, Easter Week 4: Litany for the Good Shepherd

For Easter Week 4 Year B in 2018, my litany focused on John 10, the “I am the Good Shepherd” passage. This year I’m leaning on the Lectionary Epistle, 1 John 3.

God, we know that if we say we love you
And neglect to love our neighbors,
Our words are empty
And our faith is practically useless …



Easter 4 (Year A 2020): Litany for the Gate

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as part of my effort to make this work sustainable.
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I’m prepping a sermon on this passage from John 10 this week, and lots of themes are presenting themselves to me, particularly as I read the other Lectionary passages. Christ as gate. Christ as Shepherd. Christ as Suffering Servant. Christ as “Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). 

I’m very taken with Christ’s I AM statement: I am the gate. Ive heard this text preached many times as though Christ is the one who guards the flock and keeps them safe inside the confines of their pen, their spiritual home, their expectations and norms. Safe from heretics and marauders of the faith. But I’m seeing it now as a pathway that leads to journey, adventure, growth, learning, trial and error, uncertainty, and a broader experience of the world. 


Christ, as you taught us in the holy scriptures
You are the gate
That leads us to green pastures.
You are the gate
That opens up to still waters…

Lent 4 (Year A): Litany for Mud and Spit

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as part of my effort to make this work sustainable.
So thanks for reading and subscribing.
You can find archived litanies here, and purchase my book here.

Sometimes, like now, we have to endure mud and spit so that we can have our eyes opened and receive light in them. The very essentials of earth and humanity spread across our field of vision, that we may become unblinded. 

When this happens, we have choices: we can scoff at the method, ignore it, resist it. (Gross! Inconvenient! Unneccesary!). Or. We can see it as the love it is. Surrender. Practice gratitude. 

We are in a moment of apocalypse here on this planet. (Apocalypse meaning “revealing”.) Our fragility and vulnerability revealed. In our privilege we are convinced of our invulnerability. We put our faith in economic forces and our physical capabilities to keep us safe and insulated from hardship, only to learn that they are easily toppled by the most base and microscopic of single celled* foes. 

The best part about the story in John 9, of the man born blind whom Jesus heals with “mud and saliva”, is the new level of agency the previously blind man seems to step into. He speaks for himself. He decides to follow Christ. He stands up to bullies. He testifies to the Christ (John 9:33). 

So. We may be whirling. We may feel anxious. But we have an opportunity to have faith in the Light, to regard our new level of seeing as a gift. Because we know that “...Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:13,14)


God, we know that Christ has come into the world
So that those who are un-seeing might see,
And so that we who are certain of our perspective,
Might have our spiritual blindness revealed ...