The Shared Ministry
Fourth United Church of Christ—Park Street United Methodist Church
1508 Market Street - Harrisburg, PA 17103 (717)-232-0877 (Office Hours 9 AM-NOON)
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The Shared Ministry Fourth United Church of Christ—Park Street United Methodist Church 1508 Market Street - Harrisburg, PA 17103 (717)-232-0877 (Office Hours 9 AM-NOON)
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O GOD OF ALL CHILDREN O God of the children of Somalia , Sarajevo , South Africa , and South Carolina , Of Albania, Alabama , Bosnia , Boston , and Baghdad , Of Krakow and Cairo , Chicago and Croatia , Of Teheran and Amman , Help us to love and respect and protect them all. O God of Black and Brown and White and Albino children and those all mixed together, Of children who are rich and poor and in between, Of children who speak English and Spanish and Arabic, and Parsee and German and Russian and Hmong and languages our ears cannot discern, Help us to love and respect and protect them all. O God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute, of the child of rapture and the child of rape, Of runaway or thrown-away children who struggle every day without parent or place or friend or future, Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of children who can walk and talk and hear and see and sing and dance and jump and play and of children who wish they could but can't, Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and unwanted, Help us to love and respect and protect them all. O God of beggar, beaten, abused, neglected, homeless, AIDS, drug, and hunger-ravaged children, Of children who are emotionally and physically and mentally fragile, and of children who rebel and ridicule, torment and taunt, Help us to love and respect and protect them all. O God of children of destiny and of despair, of war and of peace, Of disfigured, diseased, and dying children, Of children without hope and of children with hope to spare and to share, Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
Marion Wright Edelman Guide My Feet: Prayers and Meditations on Loving and Working For Children, Beacon Press, Boston , MA 1995, pages 102 and 103.
Prayer For Guidance Thomas Merton (Father Lewis OCSO) My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.
The Shared Ministry Penn Central Conference Annual Meeting June 13, 14, 15, 2008 1508 Market Street Harrisburg , PA 17103 717-232-0877 |
