A prayer of confession, and hope

It should be obvious.  For new wine we will have to have new wineskins.  Until you have new wineskins – a new social order – it doesn’t make a bit of difference to teach people “thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not be greedy.”  Our system is set up on the assumption that greed on the top will “trickle down” to the poor on the bottom…

                                                                                                                Richard Rohr

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New wine skins

new wine

I would love to believe

I am a “new skin” in which

the new wine of grace and love

sloshes freely

happily fermenting

bubbling

becoming powerful and alive

but alas

I may be more patched than new

Ah yes, there are ways in which

The intoxicating power of the Spirit

has made me new

but alas

there are old ways

old thoughts

old behaviors

I hang on to still

and so quite frankly

O Sacred one

there are places I am dry and cracked

I leak

touch me oh Spirit with the gentle

hands of love

soften me

remake me

give me love for those I struggle to love

give me compassion for those who anger me

turn the old world order upside down

in me

in this heart

that I may truly carry

the new wine

of

grace