The grace and impatience to wait

A prayer by Walter Brueggemann during Advent

In our secret yearnings

we wait for your coming,

and in our grinding despair

we doubt that you will.

And in this privileged place

 we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we

and by those who despair more deeply than do we.

Look upon your church and its pastors

in this season of hope

which runs so quickly to fatigue

and this season of yearning

which becomes so easily quarrelsome.

Give us the grace and the impatience

to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,

to the edge of our finger tips.

We do not want our several world to end.

Come in your power

and come in your weakness

in any case

and make all things new.

Amen

Taken from Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth. P. 148