Prayer connected to Amos 9

The following prayer for a service on Amos 9 was written for Wine Before Breakfast in the fall. Along with allusions to Amos 9, it also contains allusions to Amos 7 and 8, as well as Psalm 139.

Gracious God,
You who control hurricanes and earthquakes, ,
Have power over the wind and the storm.

Where can we go from your presence?
‘Though we hide from your sight
at the bottom of the sea,
You will search us out.’

‘The wings of the morning
and the farthest limits of the sea’
Even there we cannot flee
from Your presence.

Such power is too wonderful for me.

How do we reconcile that no one
can hide from you?
None can hide
from the fierce love of a mother,
From the power that can leave a trail
like that of the wake of a hurricane.

Too often our images of You are incomplete:

We picture a loving friend-God
Who seems unaware of injustice,
Or an angry king-God,
Who seems bent on judgement.

How do we see the fullness of who You are?
How do we be honest about Your anger
and passion for justice,
while still resting in your grace?

We thus pray for the church
and how we proclaim who You are,
We lament especially how people have been harmed
when your image has been distorted
by proclaiming only one side of who you are.

[Silent, spoken, and written prayers for the church and for those you have been hurt by distorted images of God.]

All-powerful God,
‘You who build your upper chambers in the heavens,
and found your vault upon the earth;
You who call for the waters of the sea,
and pour them out upon the surface of the earth—
the Lord Almighty is your name.’

You punish those who turn their backs on justice,
who reject their identities as divine image-bearers;
You call for justice to flow down like waters.
So why then does injustice seem to thrive?

The poor are still bought for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
So many goods are produced by those not earning a living wage.
The land is exploited,
a continuation of treaties that took advantage of others.

We lament the injustice in the world
and the suffering of those around us.

[Silent, spoken, and written prayers of lament for the suffering and injustices in the world].

God of all justice,
Protect us from your anger.
Fix your eyes on us for good
and not for harm.

We confess for how
we’ve participated in the wrong around us.
We’ve had a part in the fires raging in the world.
We have made it hard for others to breathe.

Distracted by social media and the news,
caught up in our work and worries.
Attracted to images of strength
instead of humility and truth.
We suffer a famine of ‘hearing the words of the LORD.’

[Silent, spoken, and written prayers of confession]

God of all hope,
May we see that you relent
not because of who we are
– and whether we are good enough -
But because of who you are.

Give us eyes to imagine a different story.
To see how your might
shapes a new world.

May we see how you care for all people.
That we, who are not the chosen people,
who were not the first people -
But instead are the Ethiopians,
the settlers and colonizers -
That you would care as much for us 
as for any other.

Recognizing the great gift of being included,
We lament all those who continue to be marginalized
and also give thanks for how you have included all of us.

[Silent, spoken, and written words of thanksgiving]

Gracious God,
Even as we long to hear
and speak words for restoration,
may we never stop mourning the suffering of the world.

May your presence inspire comfort and not fear.
May we look for how You are working in the world.
May we see justice rolling down like rivers.

Amen.

Lab Girl (2016) - insight into the life of an academic in the sciences

I found Lab Girl (by Hope Jahren) helpful for understanding the experience of academics in the sciences, both graduate students and faculty, especially those involved in labs. I wasn't sure, though, what to make of the interspersed chapters on plant biology, as fascinating as they were. They did provide a metaphor for understanding the rest of the book: “People are like plants: they grow toward the light. I chose science because science gave me what I needed – a home as defined in the most literal sense: a safe place to be.” (18)

At times, though, these interspersed chapters on biology felt like they got in the way of the story I wanted to hear more about, even as much as Jahren's telling us of the biology of trees is as much a part of her story as all the (mis)adventures that she had. Her story was unique: “there’s still no journal where I can tell the story of how my science is done with both the heart and the hands.” (20) Nor can she speak fully of all the non-successes that obviously don’t make it into journals. Instead she notes that “I have become proficient at producing a rare species of prose capable of distilling ten years of work by five people into six published pages, written in a language that very few people can read and that no one ever speaks. This writing relates the details of my work with the precision of a laser scalpel, but its streamlined beauty is a type of artifice, a size-zero mannequin designed to showcase the glory of a dress that would be much less perfect on a real person.” (20)

The book was also helpful in providing insights into some of the unseen challenges of academic, especially that of science professors (and those who direct labs). She notes how, while we might expect knowledge and research to be the hardest questions that scientists face, funding is actually the biggest stress:

"Next time you meet a science professor, ask her if she ever worries that her findings might be wrong. If she worries that she chose an impossible problem to study, or that she overlooked some important evidence along the way. If she worries that one of the many roads not taken was perhaps the road to the right answer that she’s still looking for. Ask a science professor what she worries about. It won’t take long. She’ll look you in the eye and say one word: “Money.” " (124-5)

She also talks about the challenges and loneliness that she experienced, particularly as a female in her profession. Despite being someone who won some prominent awards (and was on the tenure track at 26 already!), funding was a significant problem for at least ten years. She also speaks about being taken advantage of by another lab in the building, of being yelled at a conference presentation, of being ignored socially at conferences by the senior scientists in her field. She also notes about how hard when her life went against a lot of societal norms, especially what is expected of females:

“I didn’t know if I was crying because I was nobody’s wife or mother – or because I felt like nobody’s daughter – or because of the beauty of that single perfect line on the readout. I had worked and waited for this day. In solving this mystery I had also proved something, at least to myself, and I finally knew what real research would feel like. But as satisfying as it was, it still stands out as one of the loneliest moments of my life. On some deep level, the realization that I could do good science was accompanied by the knowledge that I had formally and terminally missed my chance to become like any of the women that I had ever known. In the years to come, I would create a new sort of normal for myself within my own laboratory. I would have a brother close than any of my siblings, someone I could call any hour of the day or night. . . I would nurture a new generation of students, some of whom were just hungry for attention, and a very few who would live up to the potential that I saw in them.” (71-2).

Despite all the challenges, there is a lot of hope in the book: the community that she builds, the grace and acceptance that she presents, and the quiet presence of God:

“My lab is a place where my guilt over what I haven’t done is supplanted by all the things that I am getting done. . . My lab is a place where I can be the child that I still am. . . . My laboratory is like a church because it is where I figure out what I believe. The machines drone a gathering hymn as I enter. I know whom I’ll probably see, and I know how they’ll probably act. I know there’ll be silence; I know there’ll be music, a time to greet my friends, and a time to leave others to their contemplation. There are rituals that I follow, some I understand and some I don’t. . . And, just like church, because I grew up in it, it is not something from which I can ever really walk away.” (19)