girltheology

While I am the "Chaplain" for the United Church at UBC, I am actually appointed as part of the ministry team at University Hill United Church. Our congregation has been going through a difficult time of discernment and decision making around whether or not we will, in the name of Christ, bless same same sex marriage. It's been a difficult, difficult process, and last night during our council meeting I kept having the words of Thomas Merton's prayer go through my head. This especially since the faith formation portion of our meeting was on "Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain"; one of the ways in which we blaspheme God being that we presume to know what God/Jesus/Spirit thinks - that we become grandiose putting our own will as what we would hope the Divine will would be.

So, say a prayer for my little congregation as we move forward from here, and if you're in a place where you're unsure of something in your own life, I love this prayer:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"