The grace and the impatience to wait. (1994)

Advent Prayer by Walter Brueggemann from his book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

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 edges of our finger tips.

We do not want our several worlds to end.

Come in your power

                and come in your weakness

                in any case

               and make all things new.

Amen