O God of freedom: in our mental slavery, we cry for your Spirit to help us sing redemption songs, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For Music, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”:

O God of the mysterious clouds, who appears most in darkness and speaks most in silence: we who have looked at love from both sides now and find that we do not really know love at all cry out like the bride for her lost lover, pleading for your Spirit to sate our hungry hearts; grant that we might learn to practice the fierce but gentle love of your Son, that in loving one another we may at last love you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”:

O God, whose breath brooded over the waters: we come seeking the mysterious flow of your Spirit, hoping for a wind to clear away the clouds of our sorrow and reveal the clear light of your Son, and yet here we remain, lost but believing, in prayer telling all we can. Amen.

For music, Nick Drake’s “Riverman”:

O God of all we are: halfway from coal, halfway to diamond, we come before you rejoicing in the abundant grace of this moment, knowing our faults, but not needing any more than all you have given us; send us, then, your Spirit to make our delight in simple beauty full, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, the piano demo of R. E. M.’s “Beat a Drum”:

O God, whose voice in our hearts goes beyond words: grant us your Spirit, that we may be ever more enveloped by the mystery of the Word made flesh in your Son, until our rejoicing breaks forth into our own songs without words, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, the marvelous Jacqueline Du Pré playing Mendelssohn’s “Song without Words in D major, Op. 109”:

O God of our abandonment, whose night seems to know no dawn: grant that we, in the darkness of your Spirit, might hear the beating of your heart and find peace as we remain in the twilight of its shadow, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, this stunning live version of Florence and the Machine’s “Cosmic Love”:

O God of our weary hands, which rest today from their labors: may your Spirit fill us with strength to take others’ hands in our own, that, feeling the tactile witness of their work, we might at last understand one another in love, through the grace of Him whose hands were pierced for us, Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, “Rest These Hands,” by British-born composer Anna Clyne (b. 1980):

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O God, you who haunt all our disappointments: grant the slightest taste of your Spirit to let us know that our pleas are heard, that even though we may not get what we want, we may yet discern your faithfulness and love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths:

O Lord of song, whom we praise with our broken music: accept the songs of our childlike joy and hear your Spirit in our breaths as we, in gratitude for your glorious gifts, reach out to fill your cup as you have filled ours, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, The Grateful Dead’s “Ripple”:

O God of all our griefs, you whose name we cry out to the darkness, in whom we strain to believe: send a flicker of your Spirit to show us the face of your Son in all of the broken people around us, that when we learn to see his face in our own we might at last become one people as you are One God. Amen.

For music, “Jesus Alone” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:

Our God of the sanctuary, before whose doors our prayers blow like a great desert storm, all sand and wind: as we walk in Jesus’ wilderness way, may your Spirit tune our impatient hearts and voices to the seasons of your day, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, Mazzy Star’s “Seasons of Your Day”:

O God of light, in whom there is no darkness at all: in gratitude that Jesus came to meet us in our darkness, we pray for your Spirit to guide us through your mysterious love, the darkness that is no darkness. Amen.

For music, Voces8 singing Judith Bingham’s “The Darkness is No Darkness”:

Our beloved God, whose image in the people around us we wound daily: grant us your Spirit, opening our hearts and eyes to the sufferings of your Son, until at last we have the strength not to carry on. Amen.

For music, Beth Orton’s “God Song”:

Our mothering God, who daily feeds us out of your self with Jesus’ body and blood that we might find new birth in your Spirit: grant that we through our own gifts and labors might give life to your church, one people as you are One God. Amen.

For music: John Tavener’s “Mother of God, Here I Stand”:

Our God of wayfarers, who led the children of Israel through the wilderness: grant that we, in the short sojourn before we cross over the Jordan to our heavenly home, might catch enough of your Spirit to forge the kind of love here that makes for joyous meetings there, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, the inimitable Neko Case singing “Wayfaring Stranger”:

O God of our uncertainties: as Jesus in the wilderness refused the comfort of turning stones into bread, grant that we might not too readily quench our thirst for your Spirit. Amen.

For music, Mary Rocap’s “A Half a Dozen Things.” She’s a singer-songwriter from Durham, NC, who used to sell our family the best eggs. She’s not LDS, but I’ve long thought of this song as capturing the spirit of the bloggernacle.

O God, you who brood over the dark, roiling waters of our human failure to love: as Jesus came not to walk upon these waters, but to compass their depths, grant us the courage of your Spirit to face their fierce waves, that we might clasp hands in love with our sisters and brothers of the tempest, one people as you are One God. Amen.

For music, Leonard Cohen’s  “You Want It Darker”:

O God of judgment, before whose bar we must all appear: open our hearts with the grace of your Spirit to hear the stories of the people around us, that in them we might come to see Jesus incarnate and learn at last to love him by loving them. Amen.

For music, R.E.M.’s “New Test Leper”:

Our Creator God, you who breathed life into the clay from which we now make instruments of death: let the holy breath of your Spirit fall once more upon us, that in the brief space between our births and our deaths we might love one another in our beautiful fragility, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: Iron and Wine’s “On Your Wings”:

O God of our mysterious life, who through your Spirit and the scandal of your Son’s cross reveals wild and unknown landscapes within our souls: grant us the courage to open our hearts to these unexpected beauties, that we might discover new ways of love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: Björk’s “Jóga”:

O God of our Sabbath rest: as we now find ourselves deep in the wilderness of our fast, restless with wandering, fill us with hunger for your Spirit, that our hearts may not rest until they rest in you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music, Greg Spero’s “No Rest for the Weary”:

O God of our desert, where we have now long languished: in this valley of the shadow of death, may we yet commune with you in the Spirit, that, as our fast goes on and on and on, we might still be together with you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: Wilco’s “On and On and On.”

Our hearts sing out to you, O God, in praise of the sunlight that warms our wandering; grant us the music of your Spirit so that we, dancing in the footsteps of your Son, might come into harmony with your glorious beams, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: the eponymous concluding piece from Patrick Hawes’s “Song of Songs” suite:
 

O God of the silent darkness, in which we sometimes feel ourselves lost, hearing instead of your voice only the echoes of our own prayers: remember the garden in which your Son prayed, and let the wings of the Spirit bear the sweet scent of his orisons to your nostrils, that we, the substance of the savor he sent up, might find access to you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: “Love’s Echo,” from Patrick Hawes’s “Song of Songs” suite:

O God of my prayers, to whom I call hour by hour, longing for the touch of your Spirit: grant that my heart might never cease to be faint with love for your Son, my beloved, who teaches me the dance of the One God. Amen.

For music, “Faint with Love,” from Patrick Hawes’s “Song of Songs” suite:

O God of our wilderness, in whose vastness we wander these forty days: as our fast fills us again and again with the baptism of your Spirit, let not those abundant waters quench our love for your Son, through whom our errant feet ever find you, our joy and our being. Amen.

For music, “Many Waters” from Patrick Hawes’s “Song of Songs” suite.

Our God of delicious anticipation: as the first buds stoke our hunger for the spring, so may your Spirit teach us to thirst for your Son, in whose name we rejoice. Amen.

For music, “Rhapsody” from Patrick Hawes’s “Song of Songs” suite.
 

O God of abundant life, of feasts of fat things and wine upon the lees: unstop the richness of your Spirit as we approach the Lord’s Table this day, there to feast on the love you offer us through the great gift of your Son, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music this week, I’ll be using Patrick Hawes’s cycle “Song of Songs.” Here’s the first piece, “Love’s Promise”:

O God of pilgrims and all who wander: send us your spirit, which blows where it lists, that it may guide our feet into the unexpected paths where we never thought to seek the joy of your presence, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For music: “God is Love,” by The Innocence Mission.

Our vulnerable God, you who weep because we do not love our own flesh: send the Holy Spirit blowing into our souls until we learn to see ourselves in Jesus’ flesh and blood; and from his gift let love of God and our neighbor spring eternal in our hearts until we become One People, as you are One God. Amen.

For music, here is the “Lacrimosa” from Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, with Makvala Kasrashvili, soprano, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson, tenor: