DINNER (Vespers)

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Grace

Dear God,
thank you for all that is good,
for our creation and for our humanity,
for the gifts of life and of one another,
for your love which is unbounded and eternal.
for the food before us,
the family and friends beside us
and the love between us.
Amen.

Psalm 144

1-2 Blessed be God, my mountain,
    who trains me to fight fair and well.
He’s the bedrock on which I stand,
    the castle in which I live,
    my rescuing knight,
The high crag where I run for dear life,
    while he lays my enemies low.

3-4 I wonder why you care, God—
    why do you bother with us at all?
All we are is a puff of air;
    we’re like shadows in a campfire.

5-8 Step down out of heaven, God;
    ignite volcanoes in the hearts of the mountains.
Hurl your lightnings in every direction;
    shoot your arrows this way and that.
Reach all the way from sky to sea:
    pull me out of the ocean of hate,
    out of the grip of those barbarians
Who lie through their teeth,
    who shake your hand
    then knife you in the back.
 
9-10 O God, let me sing a new song to you,
    let me play it on a twelve-string guitar—
A song to the God who saved the king,
    the God who rescued David, his servant.

11 Rescue me from the enemy sword,
    release me from the grip of those barbarians
Who lie through their teeth,
    who shake your hand
    then knife you in the back.

12-14 Make our sons in their prime
    like sturdy oak trees,
Our daughters as shapely and bright
    as fields of wildflowers.
Fill our barns with great harvest,
    fill our fields with huge flocks;
Protect us from invasion and exile—
    eliminate the crime in our streets.

15 How blessed the people who have all this!
How blessed the people who have God for God!

Collect

Eternal Spirit, living God,
in whom we live and move and have our being,
all that we are, have been, and shall be is known to you,
to the very secret of our hearts
and all that rises to trouble us.
Living flame burn into us,
cleansing wind, blow through us,
fountain of water, well up within us,
that we may love and praise in deed and in truth.
Amen.