A Service for Loss, Hope, Resilience and Letting Go
Created by Rev. Debra McKnight for members of the Urban Abbey Community

Welcome

Friends, we have gathered here to celebrate our connectedness, the mystery of God’s love
and (name the guest of care) Resilience.

We come together in grief, acknowledging human loss, pain, wounding and hurt.
May God grant us grace that in pain we may find comfort,
In sorrow hope,
in death resurrection.

Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 1: 2-4

Blessed be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle Father, the Mother of mercies and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our sorrows and affliction, so that we can offer others, in their sorrows and affliction, the consolation that we have received from God ourselves.

Opening Prayer Rev. Debra McKnight

God of all Consolation,
We gather seeking comfort in all our sorrows and affliction, we gather in grief and anger, frustration and worry, we gather in deep care. We gather for (Centered Guest). We gather to honor their voice, celebrate their gifts, share their anger, hold hands in their sorrow, love them in their loss and remind them they are not alone. We pray for your presence of compassion and grace in this gathering, we pray for this time to be one of healing and affirmation, support and care.

God of all consolation, we gather so that we can offer others, in their sorrows and affliction, the consolation that we have received from your great love, courage and resilience. For the unique hurts and worries each of us bring grant us space to study focus on care on (NAME) for this hour.

God of all consolation, though the road to healing is long, uncertain and teaches us with each step we take grant us all community in our sorrows and affliction, so that we can offer others, in their sorrows and affliction, the consolation that we have received from your all loving heart.

May it be so. Amen.


Centering Voice Centered Guest and Community
(Invite the person for whom the service is built to share what they are hoping for and longing for in this time. Invite them to prepare their thoughts ahead of time to name to the gathered community. After they share invite the community to respond.)

Community responds: We are here to listen, love and affirm your voice.
(Invite each member of the gathered community to share their name, their connection to the guest of care and what they heard in their sharing that they can support.)

Prayers Rev. Debra McKnight

For Exhaustion with work not working, for tending each moment, each word, each email and each note, for thinking every word and every text, again and again and again. For the exhaustion of wondering who is safe, who understands and what is the right next step to take, for wondering when the next halting remarks will slip or the next shoe will drop. For constant navigation, for the heavy hearts of grief that keep our brains turning and make sleep elusive; for the tears that are so close to the surface and rest in the corners of our eyes at a moments notice;
grant a deep breath of peace, a moment of centering and discernment on what we really need.

Loving God, Hear Our Prayer

For Grief at the loss of connections and relationships that we thought were stronger than the storm, for those relationships we have outgrown, for deep sadness witnessing institutions, classrooms, offices and schools that fail to keep up with the work of the world or the path of true equity, justice and compassion we pray;
grant us healing that we may both receive and also be caregivers and companions on this uncertain road.

Loving God, Hear Our Prayer

For Anger in the face harsh words, careless actions and blatant cruelty coded in rules or norms, for institutions over humanity and lining up to protect the funding, the past, the status quo; for immeasurable lies and the words that cut deep into the heart;
grant us the courage to name our pain and honor our hurt, that we might strike like lightning to make all things just and new.

Loving God, Hear Our Prayer

For Gratitude in the face of struggle, for the beauty of learning and loving and moments of delight, for the gifts of these people and these places that we carry forward, for the best of them and the best of their gifts that live on in us we give thanks, for learning, even when it’s hard and growth that comes through struggle; for friends and family and friends we make into family, for connections that grow strong in the struggle and for those who show up to remind us we are beautifully and wonderful made, for leaders and colleagues with roots deep in compassion and a compass for what is true and just and right we give thanks;
grant us eyes to glimpse God’s love and give thanks.

Loving God, Hear Our Prayer

For this pregnant pause of on the way to making all things new, the labor pains of new life, the hope held tight that we can heal our wounds, tend our trauma, love our being and grow resilient bold and strong, grant us the courage to push when the midwife calls and grant us a pause to breathe deep, renew our hearts and fortify our hopes for the work at hand.

Loving God, Hear Our Prayer


Community Prayer
Each person here is welcome to offer a prayer and as you close your prayer we will all share in this refrain, Loving God, Hear Our Prayer.

Pastoral Prayer (Name Key words and phrases offered by the community and honor the words the individual has been sharing with you in your preparation.)

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom
come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.

Naming Support Community

Each member of the circle offers a words of love and encouragement to NAME and shares a pebble and writes down the words.
(They will take this home as a reminder they is not alone.)

Anointing Oil

We gather in a tradition of healing and courage. I want to invite you to consider this moment of healing and courage within the tradition of anointing oil. I realize this might be strange, new or perhaps a reminder of very negative parts of Christianity that may approach healing in a manner that makes us uncomfortable. This is about healing not cure; it is not magic or immediate, it is about a wholistic sense of God’s loving presence and the resilience seeded in us all. In the Biblical narrative ancient people anointed important folks, Kings like David and Solomon; Jesus was anointed by a woman it was an extraordinary gift that he asked would always be remembered. And as we do this we remember we are all royalty, if you will, all of us valuable, important and beautify made. I invite you into this ritual as you feel comfortable, when you come forward I will place a small amount of this oil on your forehead and pray you feel the loving, healing presence of God’s love.

Closing Prayer
“For Courage” by John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us

Closing Blessing Rev. Debra McKnight

Anne Lamont says, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don’t give up.”

Loving God,

We gather in hope.
May we have the courage to go forth, determined for life abundant,
and the strength to place one foot before the other no matter how challenging the terrain.

We gather in hope to untangle all that would bind us and ensnare our dreams,
we gather to remember we are not alone and the Spirit calls us to live bold lives,
radiant expressions of the divine seeded in our very souls.

We gather in hope, connection and community.

May we have the courage to be who we are,
to love, learn and grow.

Amen.


Recommended Books:
Praying our Goodbyes: A Spiritual Companion Through Life’s Losses and Sorrows by Joyce Rupp
Don’t Forgive Too Soon: Extending Two Hands That Heal by Matthew Linn
All Along You were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols