“But keep in mind that God’s first language is silence” (Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, Bloomsbury Continuum, 2006, p. 48). I’m not sure I fully comprehend Father Keating’s meaning, but my early morning quiet time of meditation–bible reading, drafts of poems, and prayer as a rush of images coming too fast for words, seems to me that compelling “silence.”

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit,
thank you for assuring us you are with us always,
even to the end of time (Matthew 28: 20),

and especially when, as at this season
of Thanksgiving, we are distraught at the chaos
in our world, Evil threatening to overwhelm us–

the relentless forces of Darkness massed against
Truth and Justice, and we have no words sufficient
to express the seeming despair of families and friends,

people we walk among each day, strangers
whose touch in crowds pleads for prayer
they are too burdened to voice.

With the apostle Paul, we confess that often
“[our] sorrow is so great, [our] mental anguish
so endless” (Romans 9:2),

in our weakness we do not know how
we ought to pray, how we can pray,
but God who knows everything in our hearts,

sends the Holy Spirit to express our pleas
in a way we could never put into words
(Romans 8: 26-27).

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit,
in the stillness of our minds, may you hear
the names and see the faces of all these

we lift to you, your unfailing love and mercy,
to shelter them and grant them peace.
Amen.