April Invocation

We take this moment to recognize You, God, before country. For only with Your support, our abundant blessings may be secured. Words alone do not express our gratitude to live in this nation where we can publicly seek Your divine wisdom. Lead us beyond slogans, but also the actions which marry our individual faiths to our mutual political philosophy.

Lord, we give our frustrations to You. The world has been busy since we last prayed together. We have many concerns. With the government. With news agencies. With other nations. With our neighbors- some of whom express a lack of gratitude and aversion to reason.
We acknowledge that You have made us physical, mental and spiritual beings. As complex beings, we seek not an easy life, but a good one. We understand that some problems should be under the responsibility of the government to solve. But not always.





































There are problems whose solutions are best left in the hands of spiritual leaders. Always we must exercise our individual accountability. Let our actions be guided accordingly.
Temper our tongues with kindness and our pride with humility, that we will not extinguish the gift of the ability to learn.
When we prefer to easy retreat, but the worthy battles of our time need our muscle, give us strength to go on. Give us courage to speak with simple clarity, so that those who for their own purpose would make us out to be unfeeling and irrational- their words will be obvious to all who listen, be false witness.
We humbly ask you do the same for our officials, elected and appointed. Those we voted for, and those we did not.
As we succeed, remind us gently the importance of humility. The goodness of love. The motivation which springs from hope. And the importance that the change we seek is not for ourselves, but for the people and the nation you have so blessed in this most beautiful of states.
As this is the custom of my faith, I ask this in the name of my Lord, Jesus Christ.






Thank you to Trisha Bowler of Diamond Bar for the photos of Egret which dropped by her backyard for a lizard snack. This is the same type of bird I mentioned in previous post, but misidentified as a crane. Judy Duvall, in our morning Internet coffee-klatch, informed us that an egret is a very large white (instead of blue) heron. They are referred to as Great Egrets.



This invocation was my pleasure to write and deliver to the Diamond Bar Republican Women last week.





Wednesday letter appreciation will be back on track next week.