"This Day" — A Prayer by Wilor Bluege

“THIS DAY”

(Invocation by Wilor Bluege delivered to the St. Olaf class of 1965 at its 50th Reunion, May 29, 2015)

HOLY and SACRED MYSTERY:

THIS DAY we CELEBRATE with profound gratitude the GREAT MYSTERY that is each of us. Here, in this glorious PRESENT, “Everything is PRESENT.  Our PAST is not PAST.”

THIS DAY we CELEBRATE and ADDRESS the MYSTERY that brought us here a lifetime ago and the mystery of sheer GRACE that allows us to be here THIS day.

THIS DAY we CELEBRATE the MYSTERIOUS TENDRILS OF MEMORY, which still connect us.

THIS DAY we CELEBRATE the PRESENCE of those who have died.  Their lives matter still:  a vast deposit in the treasury of evolving human consciousness.

Many have died.  Many of us have been dismembered.  All of us have been wounded.  We are, each of us, both criminal and saint.  If there are open wounds in our lives, may we be granted the GRACE to begin to heal them, so that our children and grandchildren may not inherit the whirlwinds of archaic agendas.

THIS DAY and all of our days that follow, may we be EMPOWERED to RE-COLLECT those parts of our soul we may have left behind.   For, our histories may be what happened, but they are not who we ARE!  May we find THIS DAY the COURAGE and CLARITY to ask:  “What are we besides our history?  Who am I besides my history?  What task is there yet for me — and for us collectively?  What wants to come into the world through us?    What is the larger ‘OPUS’ that seeks to live itself out in us?”

THIS DAY we commit ourselves to the TASK of CREATIVE UNFOLDING which drags us — sometimes kicking and screaming — to the RECOGNITION that we are confronted by a PRESENCE in the depths of our soul WHO obliges us to GROW.  Grant to each of us — and to all of us collectively — the gifts of CURIOSITY, IMAGINATION, GENEROSITY, and EMPATHY as we face the unknown and our mortality.  Grant to us the AGILITY of wisdom to discern where we need to adapt, and where we need to confront.

THIS DAY may we EMBRACE the UNIQUE CALLING of our soul — a calling that asks NOT for PERFECTION but for COMPLETENESS, INCLUSION, and COMPREHENSIVENESS.  And, when LIFE asks more of us than we think we are adequate to accomplish or endure, help us, HOLY ONE, to choose the path of ENLARGEMENT instead of that which diminishes.  For whether we choose or do not choose, CHANGED we WILL BE:  either by our inner DIVINE or by our inner DEMONS.  No part is ever lost, though it may — through our CRUCIFIXION and DIVINE GRACE — be transformed for use in the wondrous tapestry of our lives.

THIS DAY we call upon the CREATIVE SPIRIT within to grant us the COURAGE to face our ANXIETY, AMBIGUITY and AMBIVALENCE.   Grant us THIS DAY, SACRED SPIRIT, the TENACITY, HUMILITY, and PERSEVERANCE without which nothing worthy of our souls can be accomplished.

THIS DAY, HOLY ONE, may we find sustenance for the soul as well as the body.  AMEN.  LET IT BE, LET IT BE.