I have begun implementing de-cluttering tactics from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Japanese consultant and author Marie Kondo. She insists that organizing must be done in order by categories — clothes, books, papers, etc, — and requires you to gather all items of a category in one place before sorting/discarding. Last week I undertook this process and while going through my book collection, a yellowed newspaper clipping with the following prayer on it fluttered out. It looks like it came from our diocesan paper, probably in the 1990s. I can’t recall the timing, but I do remember the sentiments, so perennially appropriate. Preserving it here so that I can discard the paper!

Lord make me a channel of your
disturbance.
Where there is apathy, let me provoke,
Where there is silence, may I be a voice,
Where there is too much comfort,
and too little action,
Grant disruption. 
Where there are doors closed
and hearts locked,
Grant me the willingness to listen.
When laws dictate and pain is 
overlooked  . . . 
When tradition speaks
louder than need. . . 
Our own church . . . 
Our own poor . . . 
Disturb us, O  Lord,
Teach us to be radical,
Grant that I may seek rather
to do justice than to talk about it;
To be with as well as for the poor;
To love the unlovable as well as 
the lovely;
To touch the passion of Jesus in the
Pain of those we meet;
To accept responsibility to be church.
Lord, make me a channel of your
disturbance.
— Gina Kohlhelpp