A Mediocre Litany (as opposed to the Great One in the Book of Common Prayer)

God the Father and Mother of Heaven, who looks with mercy upon your children and somehow manages not to smite us with brimstone and pestilence, we pray to you this day.

God, hear our prayer.

From all dangers and snares of the devil, and from our own stupidity in thinking we can save anyone else while ignoring the potholes in our own lives, and particularly for ignoring that our need to "save" others is a screaming notice that we might need to do some work on our own wounds.

Good God, deliver us.

From heresy and schism, particularly our fabulous ability to entrench ourselves in our own righteousness while denigrating others with slurs, gossip, and exclusion from the "cool kids" table at clergy gatherings,

Good God, deliver us.

From pride and vainglory, particularly blaming all of our leadership problems on other people not respecting our gifts or opinions, on our bishops and other clergy, and because the day of the week ended in a "y,"

Good God, deliver us.

From impertinence and ego, for offering excuses for our massive screw-ups instead of simply admitting our mistakes, and for taking more credit than we should for our successes,

Good God, deliver us.

From the presumption of awesomeness when we think we are indeed all that and forget that we, too, use the potty just like everyone else.

Good God, deliver us.

From projection and triangulation and our failings to own our own baggage, especially when we talk about another person with someone else and pretend we are processing for "their own good" when we are actually just gossiping,

Good God, deliver us.

From resentment and feeding grudges, that we may own when someone has injured us so terribly that the earth may be salted, the crops burned, and the livestock destroyed, so no hope of reconciliation in the "you're my buddy" sense exists because of the lies and betrayal, but that is still no excuse to slit tires or hope they get warts,

Good God, deliver us.

From envy and jealousy and diminishing others' talents or gifts because they are not our own (or claiming their gifts or work as our own) and ignoring what treasures we have to offer in the process,

Good God, deliver us.

From stupidity and perfection, that we even pretend we have any idea what we are doing most of the time,

Good God, deliver us.

From diminishment, when others would have us believe we are less than we are, that they have "saved" us, and that we owe them for "making" or "helping" us; and for the times we have bought into such hooey,

Good God, deliver us.

From those people and things in our lives that are crack, who seduce us into thinking they bring good and fun into our lives, but really just cause us to sleep on a ratty, dirty mattress in a back alley with smeared eyeliner,

Good God, deliver us.

For causing Jesus to drink gin straight from the bottle for our thoughts, words, and deeds,

Lord, hear our prayer.

Amen.

Comments

Alex said…
so easy to be self-righteous. not so easy to recognize that. thanks for this.
emb said…
Wow. I just, um, wow. This is hysterically funny, and sad at the same time. And yet, very enlightening, not to mention too true. As always, thanks for holding up the mirror so I/we can get a better look at my/ourselves.
ramona said…
I need to post this on my mirror and pray it every day! Thanks for the laugh, and the words of wisdom!
Nancy Wallace said…
Thanks for posting this in Holy Week when some of us (like me) can get deluded by our own piety and lose touch with the real sins from which we need deliverance. I laughed and squirmed!
Anonymous said…
What everybody else said, ditto. As always, thank you.
P.S.
Has anyone forwarded this to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music?
Diane M. Roth said…
oh, like, and it hurts. thanks.

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