A Prayer From 2 Corinthians 5 & Isaiah 43
for My Son and Class of 2019

Rev. Dan Freemyer

May 18, 2019

Redeemer God,

In you, all creatures are made new again.

Most of us have known at least one these creatures since the day they were born. We anticipated their arrivals, changed their diapers, mended their boo-boos, soothed their broken hearts, and if we’d been capable, we would’ve numbered the hairs on their heads.

We stand amazed that those same children are the extraordinary women and men before us now, prepared and poised to be made new once again.

We ask now for your blessings upon them.

God, give them confidence in their knowledge and skills to do what they are called to; give them humility to seek wisdom from sacred texts, from your Spirit, and from older generations;

give them faith in a God that is bigger than they can fathom and yet has concern for each sparrow;

give them perseverance and courage to face the challenges ahead;

give them awareness to recognize their extreme good fortune and privileges;

give them love to share and love to spare;

and God, give them the moral imagination to reject the old keys that we’re trying to give them to a planet that we’re poisoning by running it on fossil fuels and misplaced priorities—a planet with too many straight white men like me behind the steering wheel while others have been expected to sit quietly at the back of the bus.

But, God, you are doing a new thing! Praise be that you are doing a new thing through these graduates.

It springs forth and we can feel it. You are making a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. You are forming these graduates, and us all of us, for yourself, so that we might declare your praise!

Alleluia and Amen