Creator and Good Shepherd,

You made the creatures we tend and the ground beneath their feet.
Before they belonged to our farms, businesses, or tables, 
they belonged to You.

God of Welcome, 
I dedicate my table to You.
You are kind.
You are good.
You are beautiful.

I ask that I would receive You 
In the generosity of kinship gathered around my table.

Father in Heaven,
Holy is Your hospitality.
May Your Kingdom come today,
To our table and our home,
Our neighborhood and our city
As it is in Heaven.

Give us this day the gift of enough:
Enough courage to invite,
Enough vulnerability to inquire,
Enough food to share,
Enough gratitude to see Your goodness,
Enough honesty to share our unmet hopes.

Glory be to God for Dirt—

For backyard soil
as dark and dense
as the midnight sky.
And for all the creatures
who make this ground
their earthy home—
the wiggly ones
and leggy ones
and the tiny ones
our eyes can’t see.

Great Teacher, 
We pray for students of every age and every stage
As they enter a new season of learning.

May they find safe space 
To pay attention and process the many emotions that arise. 
Would they come to trust no amount of knowledge will matter 
If they have not learned how to study the depths of their own emotional world.

Father in Heaven and King of Kings,
We seek Your Wisdom,
Your Will, and Your Way.

Thank You for dark mornings,
Where light unhurriedly arrives.
May rhythms of being rooted
Reform in us as autumn assuredly arrives.

Thank you for produce,
For the food from the ground,
Growing in it, on it, and above it.

Father in Heaven,
We pray for our neighborhood schools
And the spectrum of students
Who enter schools each day.

May we forgive our neighbors who trespass against us:
For un-shoveled sidewalks and un-mowed lawns;
For late-night backyard parties and loud music

May the roots of our life reach deeper
In this threshold of time,
And in this sacred place.