Daily Reading for October 27

A Prayer for Morning

I am so weary, Father, of using myself
as the measure of everything and everybody.
Just for this one day, I beg you,
help me to find release from the old pattern
of seeing the different-from-me
as either less-than or more-than me.
Grant instead that, for just this one day at least,
I may see everything and everybody I meet
in terms of how I want you to see me
at this day’s end.

—Phyllis Tickle

An Intercession

God of diversity,
Help us to love otherness.
God of the Jesus mystery,
Help us to burn out hatred.
God of the Woman at the Well,
Help us to know our true need.
And God of the Ethiopian,
Help us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Amen.

—Michael Battle

From Race and Prayer: Collected Voices, Many Dreams, edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester Talton. Copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com