Gracious and giving God,

We are busy and when we get busy we get bold: acting decisively, deciding quickly, quickly moving, to move the day’s business forward.

So guard our activity with wisdom and fill it with compassion.

If You give us only one gift this holiday season, let it be this: grant to us the blessing of stillness; some quiet, soul searching time. Let us have time to move slower, choose with consideration, and question what we do.

Give us rest.

May all the ways You are beyond us bring us comfort: You are able in all the ways we are unable.

May all the ways You are near us bring us hope. You understand us and love us: calling us by name and looking into our eyes even in this moment.

In this season where Peace and Hope are anticipated, allow Your virtue which is both beyond us and near us to inspire us: like a candle at the end of its wick let malice, intolerance, hatred, bigotry and exclusion burn itself out to a sputtering, flickering end.

Instead, let us find within us love, acceptance, and peace.

Amen

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