A Third Collection of Reflective Prayers

By William Flewelling

These reflective prayers are the result of permitting a gentle reading of the lectionary texts for a given service to resonate in me and emerge as a searching engagement of the Word with my spirit in a mood of settled joy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496946515

William Flewelling

I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. Led by a request from Mildred Corwin of Manua OH when I arrived there in 1976, I long developed and led a series of bible studies there and in LaPorte IN and New Martinsville WV. These studies proved to be very feeding to me in my pastoral work and won a certain degree of following in my congregations. My first study was on 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about the book. I now live quietly in retirement with my wife of 54 years, a pair of dogs and several cats.

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Published by AuthorHouse 10/13/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4652-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4651-5 (e)

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Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Foreword

Some years ago, I asked several of those with whom I shared my sermons in manuscript what sort of faith they found being encouraged/nurtured in my preaching. The three who then received them by email replied. One of those replies, from Guy Kettelhack, saw my sermons standing with the reflective prayers, as companion pieces. The hope in the sermons was to achieve some degree of the kind of abandon, of free-fall love, that the reflective prayers take such risk in celebrating & investigating. He saw the sermons as appealing sometimes obliquely to that covered ache for connection that surely exists in every human being and suggests that these reflective prayers, in his reading of them, witness to that affirmation that the connection is available and open to the joy of free-fall love, abandon, delight.

These pieces regularly cause me to thrive. They appear from the gentle reading of the texts that are listed at the beginning … appear at the end of a pencil scribbling quickly around pauses as it traces cursive letters and words across lined yellow paper in very much the form that is seen on the pages. I find the writing of them engaging and rhythmic, the sounds and the passions playing together in my ears and my pencil point. I later transcribe them into typescript as you find them here.

In the first collection of these – this being the third, each of 90 prayers – I discovered there were some proofreading failures that demanded my more careful attention. I have tried to be more attentive as I went along, producing these at the rate of about one per week, in preparation for the sermons I still write if only occasionally preach out loud. For the proofreading was demanding, not merely in terms of the mechanics of the issue but also in terms of being engaged with the prayers afresh. I could not read more than two of them in a sitting; they too deeply engaged me to push through more than the two at a time.

It is always my hope in these that the experience of the reading will somehow respond to the abandon and delight that fills the production of the pieces; and that the pleasure in the initial praying/writing of the prayers may subtly engage the reader into that praying, that they pray themselves into the reading and into the reader with delight.

William Flewelling

Unsated now, I come to you, my Lord. I come and you must satisfy

                if I am to be known at home. I come as unprepared;

                            you bring me water, wine and honey – purchased all

                                          with nary price – to satisfy my broken pause.

              You intervene, my Lord, interrogate my wanton peal

                            and situate my solemn singularity of pose

                                          within the ambiance of your providing stroke.

                            I am in the contentment wrought,

                                          as you have sought my inclination where

                                                        the border is upon the laden tryst sublime.

As I in latent style remain a fruitless bramble of a bush

              you categorically attend my rooting, bring a fertile care

                            in fervent earnest to inveigh upon my waste

                                          and void, that I surprise the vanity

                                                        of days and offer in the moment life

                                                                      enough to stay the axe.

              This axiom of peace, my Lord, is in your teasing life

                            from frail to brittle tendrils of the past,

                                          the ones that linger latent and deserted till

                                                        your nurture please my wanted weal.

                            I find remorse is shorn from me

                                          as you adorn my moment with a good

                                                        so stark and poignant in the waste

                                                                      and void, the Deep of my design.

                                          I yawn in common with untenable desires,

                                                        the ones you water to produce in me

                                                                      lithe, limpid lures of lien’s delight.

In time, my Lord, I undertake to instigate

              the regimen of rote desire, the ways of moot control

                            while everywhere in my surmise you plait for me

                                          the ecstasy of your impending graciousness.

              I take the wells that flow for me, imbibe the nectar, mead

                                                                                                                              and tide

                            that I may ever yet abide your nurture and your care.

              There is in this my dare to rise,

                            to yet apprise the wonder in your eyes.

                            For I am laden with a past while interlacing life

                                          with wilderness and stark, fierce, barren strife

                                                        wherein you lay the thread

                                                                      of my austere completion and delight.

                                          I take the trace you leave for me

                                                        and wend the labyrinthine deceptions well

                                                                      enough to hold my hope in fire.

Inclusively, my Lord, you bring a liberating light

              within the situating care you fling about

                            my subtle, shy and latent flight.

              I am now interleaved with your intentional desire

                            that I may drink as you provide

                                          and constant, consonant with your provision that

                                                        I may abide in your desire.

                            Sublime it is to ride this categorical allusion to my wish

                                          to learn my joy is lithe and supple, pure

                                                        and leaning to the pirouette of life

                                                                      at barre and in your pointed care.

              The cure of your decision to abide,

                            to press the year and tend my waiting roots

                                          and bring of me a bounty in your good

                                                        that I would never estimate

                                                                      within my tarrying designs.

                            For you, my Lord, now visit me

                                          and leave me strangely blessed,

                                                        a bliss sublime, to own the cure

                                                                      you wreathe about my writhing ground.

              Amen.

Within the breach of time and clime we, writhing, come

              to test the ambiance of your resolve, my Lord.

              I come into this grating meeting, find at this point

                            the entrance as the manna fades

                                          and Passover is settled on remembrance’ tome.

                            In this exacting hour the poignant blessing bears

                                          its piquant pose as sinless has become stark sin

                                                        that righteousness of God be known.

              Austere and brash, this moment as a lash slaps virulent

                            against supposed sobriety of mien.

                            For all is rapt in your design.

                                          I come in floundering aside.

                                                        I founder on the apse.

                                                        But you, my Lord, rush headlong near

                                                                      to claim my insolence as dear.

I stagger in this crater, foolishly assigning means

              along the rim while in meniscus cradling norm.

              I search, unknowing how to look, absorbed in stead

                            in isolation’s fierce affront.

                            The landscape, as the inscape, echoes moon’s

                                          aridity. And yet I am on pilgrimage

                                                        into this rash extremity.

              The sustenance of manna through the wilderness

                            is past. The board is found in haste, to gnaw

                                          on roasted lamb and savor bitter herbs,

                                                        indulge memorial to bring re-membering

                                                                      into exaction of the heart.

                            For eaten thus the exodus is plain

                                          unto the heart. The haste and awe

                                                        reduplicate in me the time

                                                        and all the brutal, agonizing dread.

              So I am in the crucible of your excision, Lord,

                            I lose the taste of sustenance to gain

                                          the savor of redemption’s writhing borne.

                            And in this moment sin lies barren, strung

                                          between the earth and sky, to wreathe

                                                        the passion reconciling life.

In this decisive breach, my Lord,

              I learn of rush the startling incidence of life,

                            spelled as the spill of old proprieties

                                          and garnered in the headlong rush

                                                        you bring to brush aside

                                                                      all totally irrelevant

                                                                      to your resilient care.

                            I stammer as you draw me close,

                                          embracing all my anguished awe

                                                        and relegating all my speeches till

                                                                      I answer your enfolding hold

                                                                                    with my engaging grasp.

              How eloquently now the measure of all equanimity

                            is twisted into pretzel bows to decorate

                                          the feast, the fete you offer me

                                                        in untold opulence

                                                        and super-adequate desire.

Becoming in this instant of delight the breach in time and clime,

              I dally on unrecognizable delights.

              For how are you to run in such excessive zeal

                            for such as I – as even I pretend to gain?

                                          and not at all as I am truly set!

              But you, my Lord, impetuously rush ahead in glee

                            to recognize in this august embrace the trace

                                          of sovereign ecstasy, the bliss of sheer delight become

                                                                                                  sublime at this exhaustive breach.

              Amen.

Beyond all confidence, set in necessity and longing bold

              enough to bare the moment and the face

                            that I may countenance desire and pass

                                          beyond the limits known,

                                                        encountering in awe the weight

                                                                      of your allure, my Lord –

              just now the yielding of the heart,

                            the unction poured on feet, anointing life

                                          in beauty roused to tantalizing joy –

                            all this becomes the rapt beginning I

                                          discover as the formed delight

                                                        your hands have molded here.

                            We are preparing in thy presence, Lord,

                                          preparing for the stabbing instance of the cross.

                            And as we ready now to undergo

                                          the mystery past confidence

                                                        in sheer abandon to the hope

                                                                      past every hype,

                                          we dally in excess and wonder after awe.

Become in this engagement fully twined

              in your exclusive lien, where serving, waiting, kneeling pours

                            anointing fragrance, opulence, extravagance, I come

                                          upon the consummation past imagination’s fare.

              Incredibly, my Lord, as all exhaustion seines

                            my weariness, as fully wrought by your

                                          fresh molding of my clay, with these

                                                        become thy people formed,

                            I tarry after praise, exalting by the prized of life,

                                          cast in wild exultation unto you, my Lord.

                            I am the wan oblation; what I can I muster, raise

                                          in semi-eloquence unto your frame.

                            There is in this, I must surmise, a fundamental harmony,

                                          one sounding depths too thoroughly inclined

                                                        to wait upon your mastery as mystery refines

                                                                      my dalliance with joy.

              The same, my Lord, is urgently rekindling me;

                            I find ignition in the throes of life,

                                          where every shred of strife becomes

                                                        the warp and woof of hope,

                                                        now woven seamlessly for thee.

Abruptly new where all the favored, savored patterns are of old,

              within the chambers of apartments in the way,

                            before the crumbling at the instance past delay,

                                          wherein the dreams and offerings and schemes

                                                        are wrenched in writhing urgency

                                                                      into unrecognizability –

              here, O my Lord, I stagger, all

                            my confidence exceeded by the want

                                          that entertains my Deep

                                                        in radical revisionary, welling joy.

                            I find my intricate collusion with the times

                                          become a striving on the crest I ride,

                                                        the great crest where I totter best

                                                                      beginning as I must

                                                                      to soar upon the seething sea.

              For in my pressing on I find my formed address

                            is borne upon the crest the cross impels

                                          in wise, exclamatory weal.

                            Now made thy own, my Lord, upon the cross,

                                          I answer in abandon, toss

                                                        all cost to cast in vast allure

                                                                      the wonder, awe, the subtle, shy and latent I:

                                                                                                                                            your own.

              Amen.

Disintegration – suddenly, decisively it integrates the soul

              with fierce persistence, absolute insistent urgency.

              For in this hour of disillusion, as the world dissolves

                            and word is silenced in the fray,

                                          and all is as absurd, confusion rankling rife

                                                        incision in the gall of time –

                            indeed, my Lord, the hour of passion rakes

                                          imagination, slakes contentment on the waste

                                                        and void of radical return

                                                                      unto the Deep whence all arises new.

              Stark, blatant, terrifying slurries of the mind

                            unbind contentment, wrest the happenstance of rime

                                          that, chilled by horror, wrought by violence

                                                        imposed upon humility

                                                                      in absolute obedience, in terse

                                                                                    assent to rendering assize,

                                          so now I may recall from my recoiling wont

                                                        the urgency that rearrays desire

                                                                      in holding to the mind so fraught

                                                                                    with sheer integrity, delight.

I find in this, the whirlwind of denouement, all the scythe

              may gather for the gleaning of creation for your way, my Lord.

              The sheaves are gathered; gleaners rake the rest

                            to bring to winnowing the excess you insist is ours.

              Yet in this standing up together, whence

                            the riot on the soul is sheer upon the whimsical desire,

                                          I find in smiting, tearing at the beard

                                                        and spittle on the face the antidote to shame

                                          wherein the answer to your Name is borne

                                                                                                                              with equanimity and truth.

              Complicit in your entering this moment on the will,

                            I find, my Lord, I dally, shaken to the core

                                          wherein the nuance of your mind

                                                        is frittering away my miscontentment’s weal.

                            Indeed, I bind my certainty away

                                          and find my path is notable

                                                        in all the echoes of denial, all

                                                                      the writhing off of choice

                                                                                    until in isolation life

                                                                                    is offered, Spirit-wise, at last.

This broken, incidental tour of abject want, absurdity

              made consequential to reality, becomes the place

                            where brutal action forges subtlety,

                                          as shy remission, latent missionary style.

              And in this tortured weal, disintegration integrates the while

                            in absolute abandon, where the night imposes dark

                                          at noon and fright exposes awe

                                                        precisely in the raw excision of the hour.

              I find, improbably, the cross impaling universal realms,

                            the earth, the skull of Golgotha, the lithe

                                          chthonic majesty eluding my capacity

                                                        but there, foundation to the cross

                                                                      that renders heaven’s veil

                                          in order than integrity expose itself

                                                        in one last gasp of offering,

                                                                      the fierce oblation of the breath.

Creation, O my Lord, is echoing this hour,

              the gasp of breath of that ungrasping that abandon wields

                            to savor soil, the soul of earth, fertility to breed

                                          a satiety of rendered, writhing joy.

              For in this passion I exult as exaltation wreathes the cross

                            and I am sundered, spent, become the inscape steppe

                                          and tor, the Golgotha where winds wreathe to adore.

              Amen.

Remembering the throes of time, anticipating moments of too bold

              an action, that which sears the soul and landscape alike,

                            so that the rash redeeming transformation rise.

              I am in this remembering re-membering the throes

                            and how established images and icons of the way

                                          things are and ought to be come smashed

                                                        in startling urgency.

              It is your urgency, my Lord. For here in this remembered time

                            the crucible of will divine holds white hot peace,

                                          the sort that sears and wrenches free

                                                        in liberated constancy.

                            Attendant as I am, my Lord,

                                          upon the crucial moment, crux

                                                        of unanticipated ordering of life afresh –

                                          attendant here, my Lord, I pause

                                                        and tremble, totter, quake.

                                          For all things writhe beyond my grasp or thought.

Remembering disruption in imagined situation – thus

              the kneeling to the bathing of the feet – to wash and dry,