A Seventh 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. The ninety samples given are the most recent, in order, at the time of publication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665547673

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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Yes, present Lord, you incubate improbably a ruth

        insinuating possibilities in thee. Then, in your buoyant gift,

            I lift within these greeting throes the soft

                exhilaration that abides improbably

                    in all my vagrant tries at time.

        Yes Lord, in this contesting interlude of hope and dearth,

            I find you interstitially embedded in my fair

                extending hope. You are the surety

                    of my remote desire.

            How carelessly must I abide this thread

                as Ariadne’s scarlet gossamer

                    throughout my labyrinthine delight

                until I find the hoary strength

                    that ever more abides?

        I search in turbulence for laminar elision. When

            am I to dare the chance to rise in prayer?

Within the reticence of anxious cares, my Lord,

        there is – it seems – a moot ellipsis on a lair

            in which you entertain the hospitality

                of your elusive satiety.

        The chances rake unmetered coals,

            the embers over clinkers in repose.

            You here endear the desperation lure

                so grated on impossibility

                that I am rendered absolutely ash.

        And ashen is the worried cheek

            amid the desert clime of sheer severity

                and harsh, unwelcoming designs on clime.

            So, looking here and there,

                I am resigned to yet declare

                my readiness to cast all hope

                    upon your steady honor’s glare.

        Ridiculous, I must suppose:

            to call upon remembrance of your past

            and root forgetfulness of mine,

                this ordinary torture on my time.

        Within this angular decision, knowing all

            is wanton in despair, I must repair

                the tottered earnest stowed

                    in lost recensions of desire.

            Yet in this folly, at your font,

                I know ridiculous is as a fool

                    in mime of excellency,

                    your teeming, timely lure.

So lured am I, my Lord, into improbability

        that I arise, a fool capacity to harbor many where

            there is no rationale, no formulation to desire.

        And here I dally to the seal.

            I tarry after wind and troll the bitterness

                of resolute neglect. For here I am;

                    I know no hidden lore.

        Ah, recognition over time, about unsorted climes,

            within unrecognized dimensions failure, mime

                a fool could undermine –

            yes, in this coming to surmise

                the break of daily fare,

                    the rooting of repair

                    in faithfulness at this last gasp!

        My Lord, how am I to attain

            the regulation of my name when all is dust

                enticing absent rain to wash

                    the must upon my main?

            Yet, in enticing to the precipice of want,

                you render at my steady wont

                    the gist of your new-justifying yield.

        Amen.

Amid the flurry of attention, all the customary turns of face,

        I find you, Lord, encumbering the trace

            of my intent, residual perplexity involved

                in coming to your open courts.

        For I have heard the regular designs,

            the construct of morality beneath the shroud of fear,

            the ritual designs of redefined propriety,

                the public matters of the face.

            By rush, I know these measures of aplomb,

                the categories of presentable desires.

            They are, these customary modes of public weal,

                the image proven messengers of pride

                    and purpose laden pomp.

Such circumstance of life begins the attitude of strife,

        the measurement of my desire, my longings, my approach.

        O Lord, you find in me the eager crowd,

            the surreptitious face of feckless dalliance aside.

            You find me in procession to the font

                of your possession, all intent on right

                    in my profession of my plight.

        Yes, Lord, I am acquainted with the flurry of my hands,

            their reticence to recognize residual demands,

                the sort that master every tort

                with calibrated efforts to depart

                    into approval on the lam.

Yet, in this calculated happenstance regime of right,

        I find my impropriety excusable for naught.

        I am in rocky land, a nihilistic brand of pride

            while entertaining at the last a curiosity

                propelling me to find appearance in the fray.

            It is your face, my Lord, to which I must address my care

                and in your face in my remote designs I ever dare.

            You are interrogation anonymity, the nameless flick

                of moderated zeal, depravity and wit.

        Becoming then the bland recurrence in the side of all desert,

            I hear you interrupt my diffidence and lure

                my confidence to open wide irregularity and life.

Without the happenstance of public rite, I stand abruptly, Lord.

        I stand agape; I stand in unacquainted whorls, agape style

            until my gaping jaw accommodate your while,

                your mystery of flagrant lure,

                    misplaced as it may be.

        I stand and understand it is within your gracious wave

            to brush aside appearances and habits and designs

                to entertain upon their heart the heart’s allure

                    for only you, my Lord.

            Incredibly revived within the tort construed demands

                of regulations regulating life

                    propriety and show,

                you indicate in generosity of heart

                    what I have been too loathe to know.

Excessive instance in your will, my Lord,

        entices me to reappraise the clutter of my days,

            a clutter so arranged as to entail the haunts

                of regulatory instances of pride.

        You entertain in my approach a word

            reproaching my timidity before you ground

                my instinct to contain in spite of peace

                    that rumbles freely into dance.

            You so interrogate my fears with love, my Lord,

                that I am dervish-like in my reply,

                    a twirling pirouette of style

                    incurring your approach to bid of me

                        a pas de deux in grace,

                        a quality of tryst sublime.

        Amen.

Anticipation rings exultantly, my Lord, expecting then

        the hour to toll and reap the whole in your delight.

        Yet, all anticipation faints to try, perhaps behold,

            immaculate and sure, your face

                upon that undetermined day of longing’s lean,

                    precipitous intensity of joy.

        Yes, in this tumult, I ascend the daunting face

            in awkward hope of satiety and bliss.

            This while, though, Lord, I find I undertake

                the scale of sheer design, the precipice of hope.

            Would there be in this brazen face

                inscription laid in lead to inculcate

                    precision and attributed delight?

Ah, innocence is shy; unknowing guesses at the lie

        that even now articulates improbability,

            the coarse residual of bliss.

        Yes, here I must confess the stirrings of the hour,

            the arduous complexity with your abrupt intent.

        I am engaged beyond comparison with your astute relief,

            engaged in writhing, tortuous complexity of haunt

                caught in simplicity, the singularity

                    of your perpetual allure.

Well, Lord, I find the murmurings of tacit certainty, the tomes

        that overall would scribe determination of a want

            we clamor to supply with images of confidence

                intent on granting echo chambers of the moot.

        Yes, yes, my Lord: I hear that raucous swirl, cacophony

            of prejudicial script, a definition goaded style

                that settles in a while.

            But you, my Lord, dissemble on my regularity of wit

                and tease my instinct from the fraud

                    of artificial constructs of the heart.

        And so, my Lord, you find me rumbling over bluffs

            that end the muse as of rote satisfaction meant to hold

                completion of desire in smug array.

            Yet, even more, I hear the ancient voices told delay

                as if we simply do not know

                except that we are in the throes

                    of life dimensions overlaid in hope

                        that samples your assent.

My Lord, as generation folds into another generation, birth

        and death, the coming to begin in dolling care

            the husbandry of dreams undreamt, begun

                to be beginning past the haunt

                    of exercised attempts at surety –

        as this begins unfolding once again in life,

            O God of all the living – Abraham and Isaac, Israel

                and my declension of articulated hope –

        as this begins escaping my rote over-definition, try

            my tryst in Spirit that I list not in the main

                but know the keel and mind the helm

                    to slice contemporary hope

                        beyond the fading wake of dread.

        Yes, yes, my Lord: I find you in my waiting while,

            the whisper of thin silence that abides

                and into which I wait the while

                new-satisfied with generations’ centered pole.

You are the prised dynamic in the dance,

        a dance as pas de deux that balances my fright

            with flight, return, take, spin, spun to begin

                beginnings once again.

        My Lord, I find this custom enterprise escaping my design

            and poising me ineffably up the precipice of bliss;

                that holding to your whispered grace

                indulges me in life beyond my latent haste.

        Amen.

So startling, Lord, is this acute contention, felt and found

        around the contradictory ascension of ideals

            and party spirits, rude assumptions on the slight

                erosion of delight, integrity and grace –

        So startling is this dissonance at hand

            that I am staggering in lien of peace.

            For in this rise of moralistic guile

                I find the guise of disagreeable refrains

                    in consonance with your inviting core.

        Indeed, my Lord, I find the arrogance and pride

            a seething contraband on elements of mercy, love

                and covenantal constancy.

            Your earnest in the soul is grander than the gist

                of disagreeable contrivance to deny

                    the gentle hospitality of life.

Beyond this awkward play, my Lord, I entertain

        the folly of rued over definition on the scale

            of hardened hearts. Indeed, mild-heartedness

                is taunted in the gist of lesion laden leers.

        These days of superannuated hearts begin

            the slurry of dissention, bully-ridden haunts

                sclerotic in their mien that rest forevermore

                    within the wooden caricature of life.

        Yet, here I stand in uttermost confusion, Lord.

            I weigh the reasoning of aggravated pride

                and see within the brittle lines a hint

                    of something kin to private lust

                        and moralistic rue.

            And you glide dally-wise about my mood

                as if this all were moot and I must rise

                    in independent affirmation of the same.

            But all this same, my Lord, betrays the fulcrum of desire

                and all the balances of hope and skill,

                    the earnest in the wary heart to gain

                        sufficiency in will.

                How shall I stand in this continual demise?

The breaking of the moment on the leverage of hope

        turns of the moot reflections to the side,

            permitting in my inadroit capacities

                a rearrangement, all reorganized upon the lip

                    of ardent truth, sobriety and peace.

        Do I again attest the subtle lure of graciousness

            about the undertow of your sublime remission on

                the overstated love of power in this company

                    of ordinary ridicule?

            Or is it that I barely dread enough

                when you accede unto my heart

                    and generate, illuminate my part

                        in this acquaintance with shared bliss?

        Oh, regularity is never my appeal, my Lord.

            There is a singularity, this awkward point,

                conjoint with imprecision, whence

                    I take my spin on your eruptive joys.

            And, in this singularity, so ill-defined or undefined,

                yet prominent excessively, I find

                    you find in arrogance but stubble-brew

                        and thence eschew it all

                        for healing in the wings.

And now, my Lord, I am emboldened to declare

        the mystery of aeries and the whimsical in air,

            this singing of remorseless joy,

            intoning melodies inviting life and love and hope

                into the boundless play of dervish flights

                where balance is irregular

                    and life is spent by singularity.

        Amen.

Before the naked throne, suspended as life sown in want, I come

        and linger to behold the barren want of Golgotha.

        Here, held beside the stark impression of the cross, my Lord,

            I find exacted mercy earnestly imposed

                with taunts and barbs unwittingly attached.

            I find, my Lord, austerity severely lashed

                into the soul, the stripping to disdain

                    that as regaling evidence of how

                        oblation regulates in loss.

            I find the second speaking evildoer bold

                to implicate this awed enthronement set

                    within the witness gasping by.

        And all is turned, articulate in witness never known,

            to see the king enthroned in such array

                despised until the raking of the hour.

My Lord, I am enticed to see the righteousness you are

        exposed in insular provision to embrace the bold

            and know the fabrication of your peace in blood,

                a peace of reconciliation of the host and all

                    within the reign that lasts

                    established at this startling throne.

        Exposed am I in this the body of my Lord, exposed

            to naked Golgotha, to echoes of disdain

                and peals of mercy, wrung mild-hearted joy

                    whence paradise is meted by the lilt

                        of blessing by the Lord enthroned.

        Yet in this tortuous ascent, my Lord,

            I find transfigured meant disruption of design

                into the bold eruption by design

                of life enthroned as rooted