Kirkepiscatoid

I recently read a devotional excerpt in Forward Day by Day where the author praised the value of her trip to and from her country home every day and "town." It got me to thinking about the joys of my own trips I take every day from my own home in the country to town, and back home again.

Here is the prayer I wrote about that daily trip:

A Prayer for my Twenty Minute Drive to and from Work

Lord God, you knit the threads of time into the garment of the universe in amazing ways.

Thank you for gift of my twenty minute drive to and from work each day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, a drive that some might find a chore. Within that twenty minutes are the seasons of the year, the mysteries of life, and nature's coat of many colors.

Take the pristine white January snowdrifts, the earthy muck of April, July's powder blue chicory flowers, October's orange fallen leaves, and the heavy gray horizon of December, and splice them together into a never-ending, always changing kaleidoscope of colors and patterns--so much the same day by day, yet stunningly different from season to season.

Synchronize the motions of my familiar journey with the joyful motions of your natural kingdom--bounding deer with tails held aloft, hopping baby rabbits, scurrying coveys of quail, and the creeping pace of the box turtle.

Keep me aware of unexpected roadside delights--owls landing with outstretched wings onto fence posts, newly born calves, shy flocks of turkeys, hawks flying lazy circles in the sky. Use them to teach me that unexpected joys still await within my most mundane work days.

Embed in my heart the knowledge that what I see along the road today is but a fleeting shadow, put there by You for today's viewing only--yesterday's view is gone, and tomorrow's is not yet here.

Transform the seconds of those twenty minutes into hours of inner strength as I prepare for my day's work, and unwind the watchspring of the stress of my day in those twenty minutes towards home.

Even in the visages of nature's death by the roadside, make me mindful that I, too, will become dust, and I may not take this journey again. What I do today must matter.

Weave these threads of time, oh Lord, so finite, so similar, into the carpet of your kingdom--a kingdom with no end, no beginning, illuminated by perpetual light. In the name of Jesus Christ, whose 33 finite years stretches into infinity, Amen.