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"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1:25)

June 16th, 2007

A Prayer for Those Whose Work is Invisible

Posted At: 9:21am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

Novelist and poet Mary Gordon has written a delightful Prayer for Those Whose Work is Invisible, a wonderful study in the beauty of vocation.

For those who paint the underside of boats,
Makers of ornamental drains on roofs too high to be seen;
For cobblers who labor over inner soles;
For seamstresses who stitch the wrong side of linings;
For scholars whose research leads to no obvious discovery;
For dentists who polish each gold surface of the fillings of upper molars;
For sewer engineers and those who repair water mains;
For electricians;
For artists who suppress what does injustice to their visions;
For surgeons whose sutures are things of beauty.
For all those whose work is for Your eyes only,
    who labor for Your entertainment, or their own,
    who sleep in peace or do not sleep in peace,
        knowing that their effects are unknown.

Protect them from downheartedness and from diseases of the eye.
Grant them perseverance, for the sake of Your love,
    which is humble, invisible and heedless of reward.

(From “Six Prayers,” by Mary Gordon in God Is Love: Essays From Portland Magazine. Brian Doyle, ed. Augsburg, 2003.   pp. 29-30)

To these graceful intercessions, I would add:

For woodworkers who laboriously craft dovetailed miter joints;
For preachers who preach their best sermons to semi-empty churches;
For authors whose books will be treasured by later generations;
For plumbers who wipe every soldered joint in the crawl space;
For carpenters who build every wall as though it were load bearing;
For accountants whose work is noticed only when they make a mistake;
For those who govern without the need to be on camera;
For ministers who haven’t written a best-selling book or appear on television;
For teachers of English grammar;

And on this Father’s Day weekend
For fathers, whose greatest works cannot be measured or adequately explained.

Perhaps you have a few petitions of your own to add.

Edited on: June 16th, 2007 9:27 am

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June 16th, 2007

A Prayer for Those Whose Work is Invisible