Teach your children well

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 78

by Ken Sehested

Hear, O people of Promise and heirs of Provision,

You who strayed from Providence,

You who lost your way and forsook the rod of instruction and the staff of guidance,

Who forgot that in the wilderness your thirst was quenched from split rocks; your hunger, with the bread of angels.

From Pharaoh’s slough I redeemed you, from Egyptian carnage I rescued you, through the sea I buoyed you,.

In the desert I piloted you, on Sinai’s slope I instructed you, and to a fertile land and a fecund future I pledged you.

Retrieve these remembrances, and countless more, retrieve from memory’s dark eclipse.

So that you may teach your children well.

For they are living messages to a lineage you will not see; to a future beyond your horizon.

Teach your children well.

Devote yourself to the generations to come, so that each newborn ear will attend the decree of deliverance.

Teach your children well.

So that each cry be borne by the Comforter; each query, tutored by the Rule of justice, each dispute subject to the Reign of mercy,

Together mingled for a Harvest of peace in a land that delights in its Maker!

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org