God, we come to You this morning as peregrinos y peregrinas en el camino, travelers on a road that has not always been soft ground and gently sloping hills. In a time when some lives overflow with blessings and others are perhaps just getting by, we come before you as a congregation to offer up our lives, messy and beautiful and incomplete. We come and lift not only our own hearts, but the hearts of those around us, recognizing the shared humanity in this place.

What can we give You that You do not already have? You, who encompass all things, holding creation together in the space between the smallest particles of being. You understand all nuances of Your creation, You flow into it, become entwined in it, and because we have no better word for that, we call it love.

In a world where everything seems caveated and footnoted, framed and shaded in some gradation of truth, You have shown us what is good.

Give us now the peace and the space to be open to Your light. Give us discernment to hear and the self-awareness to draw our focus outward and away from ourselves to our community and our neighbors. Grant us the wisdom to be just, the compassion to love with mercy, and bend us in gassho, that we may recognize and acknowledge that all people are Yours and imbued with the divine.

Bless us now in this time of worship that we may be refreshed and renewed and fully encompassed in Your love and hold us in Your hope. 
Amen. 

(c) K.Bridgeman 2010 (Reflections on Micah 6:8; www.middlechurch.org)