O God, gather me now
to be with you
as you are with me.

Soothe my tiredness;
quiet my fretfulness;
curb my aimlessness;
relieve my compulsiveness;
let me be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release me from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly;
from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip;
that I may be open to receiving what you give,
to risking something genuinely new,
to learning something refreshingly different.

O  God, gather me now
to be with you
as you are with me.

Amen.

~Ted Loder