This is a simple but deliberate liturgy for opening and closing the day. I wrote it in the context of a particular community, one to which I feel meaningfully connected even when I’m not there in person.

It is not an abstract spiritual exercise, but a call to sacramental living. This serves as a liturgy of the everyday incarnation,

The use of plural pronouns reflects the ritual’s nature as a collective endeavor of the community rather than as an act of individual piety. We are part of one body, even when we are not physically present with one another.

An East Lake Liturgy
For the morning:
We open this day in the promise of God’s love and presence.
We open our hearts,
we open our minds,
we open our table,
so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, with joy we may know
God through each person we meet today.

In the shadow of Ruffner Mountain,
In the shadow of the interstate,
in the shadow of buildings and bell towers and overgrown lots,
may we bring God’s presence into the life of this community.
In laundromats, in schools, in convenience stores, in homes,
may we know ourselves as gathered around a common table.
This is the work of God’s church and its people.

For the evening:
We end the meal that is this day in a spirit of thanksgiving.
We know we have fallen short many times.
Through God’s grace we go blessedly into the night and
begin again tomorrow.

The grace of Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
is with us all.