Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

This thoughtful collection of prayers emerged from Brueggemann's thirty-five years of teaching in seminaries. Full of reflection, faith, and dialogue, they reveal another side of this gifted author from what his many readers are accustomed to. These deeply felt and sparklingly articulated prayers reflect a wide range of life experiences. As readers, we are taken from the depths of pain and loss to the heights of joy and praise. The author takes on life in its fullest as he utters his praise and lament, petition and thanksgiving. Brueggemann's prayers lead us to deeper commitment, deeper faith, and deeper reflection.

The volume also includes an index of biblical allusions that will be useful for preachers as well as the general reader looking for the biblical roots of these fears, hopes, struggles, and aspirations.

Editor's Foreword
Preface


1. And then you – Facing God
And then you
At the dawn
You live at the hinge
Stunned by the morning
We wait for you to ache
You ... and therefore us
A thousand, a million, a trillion tongues
For how you hope
We say "Yes, yes"
You with ears bent close to our lips
The other side of the street
Not at our beck and call
You sweep away what we treasure
No more sinking sand
Before the day is out
Three times holy
The place where you are curbed
Our true home


2. A people with many secrets – Truth-telling confession
A people with many secrets
Like an endless falling
We treasure what you end
Not always for you
You who command
We also live double lives
An answering and refusing
Yours, and not ours
We are takers
Fashioning better guarantees
The God we would rather have
But now you know
Even on such a day


3. Against your absence – A hidden God
Against your absence
Our despairing hope
No newness yet
You are known in hiddenness
You stay hidden within that misery
With or without you
Against a closed sky


4. We are ready to listen – For illumination
We are ready to listen
Your command is garbled
Ears but do not hear
We would know more of you
The voice we can scarcely hear
The din undoes us
The grace to be haunted
Give us Saturday ears
Reach us
That we may change
Re-text us


5. Move off the page – While reading texts
Move off the page
Before us
We try, as best we can, to live by bread alone
You turn tables
Teach us how to weep
Your world-forming speech
Your word
Our mother tongue
How you inhabit this text
Your new news
After the bitterness
When the world spins crazy
The poems conflict us
Soak our lives in it
Alabaster cities
We are children of another world


6. Awed to heaven, rooted in earth – For the church in mission
Awed to heaven, rooted in earth
Not the God we would have chosen
Re-brand us
And we are different
A hard, deep call to obedience
Yes
We do not want to be arrested
Do not fear
Give us appropriate yielding
We are much drawn to circuses
Our right names
Be our primary disease
The anguish and burden of the message
With all the graciousness we can muster
Deliver us from amnesia
Demanding all, not too much, but all
Kingdoms rage ... and we are called
Move us beyond ourselves


7. Start again – For a bruised world
Start again
The threats do not wane
Their plowshares are beat into swords
Reform our deformed lives
Work your wonders
In the midst of all the pushing and shoving
Come to our shut down places
We are all in hock
While the world says "not possible"
We are not self-starters
Be your powerful, active, sovereign self
Friday is your day of entry
Into our several hells
Is there a balm ... in Gilead or anywhere?
Ours is a seduced world
Ceding our end to you


8. We will not keep silent – Cadences of gratitude
We will not keep silent
You give ... and we receive
The God who yearns and waits for us
The gratitude we intend
We are second and you are first
With you it is never "more or less"
Giver, Giver, Giver
Larger than fear
We notice your giving


9. Occupy our calendars – Praying the Christian Year
Occupy our calendars
The grace and the impatience to wait - Advent
In violence and travail – Christmas
There is a time to be born, and it is now – Epiphany
Not yet as light as hope – Shrove Tuesday
Loss is indeed our gain – Lent
Revise our taking – Lent
Or did we get it wrong – Lent
In the name of the bruised one – Holy Week
Held back – Holy Week
The pivot of hope – Maundy Thursday
The terrible silencing we cannot master – Good Friday
Not the kingdom of death – Easter
We are baffled – Easter
You who stalk the earth with new life – Easter
But not held – Easter
Easter us – Easter
To make things new that never were – Pentecost
We wait ... but not patiently – Reign of Christ
In these very late days – Reign of Christ

Index of biblical references