What I learned reading my prayers from 4 years ago...

This morning I was looking over some Advent writing I had done in years past and stumbled upon these prayers I wrote 4 years ago today, during the first Sunday of Advent during COVIDTIDE, 2020 back when I was hosting 15 minute Advent Vespers services on Instagram live from my little apartment each week.

We were still stuck in our homes at the time, as we had been for 9 months. We did not know when the world would “open up again”. We did not know what the future held at all. Not the sorrows and not the joys.

I remember reading somewhere that people who lived through the London Blitz, would, years later, pine for the time when neighbors rallied together, and families gathered by candlelight, and everyone was on a single team. And the London Blitz was a true horror for those who lived through it and a desperate ending for those who did not. And yet, it also had beauties of its own. That’s what life is like, I guess. Unpredictable in how it offers up moments of sweetness and moments of bitterness; years of plenty and years of lack; seasons of grief and seasons of ease.

Reading these prayers from Advent 1, 2020, different feelings swirled together in me:

I felt compassion for us that we lived through something so difficult. I felt comfort and discomfort both when recognizing how many of these prayers are still my prayers today. I felt a tinge of longing for the simplicity of those days. I felt sorrow remembering those who died. And I felt a surge of hope, seeing how we seemed to muddle through it all even though, at the time, we didn’t know “how” we were going to muddle through it all (a good reminder for me right now - I don’t actually have to “figure out” how to get through something in order to already be in the process of getting through it).

Sending these along and wishing you all a Blessed Advent.

Love, Nadia

How I got through Advent in 2020.

Dear God of all beings,

This pandemic is making my life so small that I am thinking of myself way more than I should. So for today, I send my prayers out on behalf of others and not myself. May my prayers connect me to them THROUGH you – like gossamer floss threaded through a divine needle.

I pray healing for those sick with COVID.

I pray calm for all who are struck with terror every time they cough, or a loved one coughs or someone passing them in the supermarket coughs.

I pray rest for exhausted nurses, doctors and other heroes I don’t always think about like the folks working in the hospital laundry and cafeteria.

I pray comfort for the lonely.

I pray rescue for the evicted.

I pray solace for the grieving. (And I’m sure you already know this Lord, but that’s basically everyone on the planet right now. Grief is the baseline for all of us. No more taking turns.)

I pray the gift of increased generosity in those who have more.

I pray mercy for the incarcerated and all who love them.

I pray fortitude for those who never ever thought they’d be homeschooling small children and are losing their minds.

I pray wisdom for our leaders.

I pray humility for the powerful.

I pray compassion for clergy and counselors and everyone else who is doing emotional and spiritual triage for others and yet are also deeply affected by the pandemic in their own quiet ways.

And for all of us, more joy please. Every tiny bit of joy possible during this shit-show. Amen.

What are your own prayers today, friend?