Seeking Wisdom

Seeking Wisdom: Inclusive Blessings and Prayers for Public Occasions provides clergy and laypersons with a unique resource to use in community settings, healthcare institutions, and faith communities. These blessings and prayers respect people from diverse religious traditions and use gender-inclusive language for humanity and divinity. Predominant themes are peace, justice, healing, hope, liberation, partnership in relationships, and caring for the earth. This collection includes blessings for such events as community Thanksgiving services, Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations, Women's History Month celebrations, Holocaust Remembrance Day services, breast cancer survivors celebrations, transplant survivors celebrations, chapel dedications, memorial services, lay ministers dedications, baby dedications, pastoral prayers, invocations, calls to worship, offertory prayers, benedictions, a lament for violence against women and girls, and a lament for other forms of injustice. This book also includes pastoral prayers, invocations, calls to worship, offertory prayers, benedictions, a lament for violence against women and girls, and a lament for other forms of injustice. Seeking Wisdom includes more than two hundred inclusive, interfaith blessings and prayers for public occasions. These blessings and prayers can be adapted or combined to fit specific occasions, providing a valuable resource for clergy and laypersons. ""Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton's inclusive and feminist liturgies, prayers, hymns, and theo/aology bring nothing but liberation and love to the lives of the individuals and faith communities that use them. I am grateful for Jann's wisdom and liturgical creativity that help the divine feminine arise not only in our rituals but in our acts of justice and spiritual journey. Not a Sunday goes by at Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran without a hymn or prayer or responsive reading penned by Jann. Seeking wisdom? Begin with this book "" --Stacy Boorn Pastor, herchurch Lutheran, San Francisco ""This outstanding book of prayers achieves the twin aims of all classic prayer books. It models the best of contemporary public prayers, which are diverse and inclusive. It invites the reader to meditation upon the God to whom the prayers are addressed. Readers who seek model prayers for public occasions or desire stimulus to devotion will be richly rewarded."" --Steven S. Ivy Senior Vice President Values, Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Pastoral Services Clarian Health ""Once again Jann Aldredge-Clanton has blessed us with a fine collection of worship resources, drawing on the rich and deep Wisdom traditions and her own extensive pastoral experience. Prayers, litanies, and readings abound with insight and wisdom for virtually any occasion one might imagine, making this book both immensely practical and deeply inspiring."" --Marjorie Procter-Smith LeVan Professor of Christian Worship Perkins School of Theology ""Jann Aldredge-Clanton once again inspires us in our everyday work. The blessings and prayers she offers assist those of us in public ministry to provide the breadth and depth of Wisdom in the wider world. I heartily recommend these beautiful offerings."" --Karrie Oertli ACPE Supervisor, Director Department of Pastoral Care Integris Baptist Medical Center, Oklahoma City, OK ""For the preacher or worship leader seeking a fresh voice, unique twists in the language of liturgy, and many ways to articulate God's expansive essence, this book is a gift of spirit and intellect. Dr. Aldredge-Clanton artfully combines her years of ministry experience with her command and love of language to provide a timely resource for chaplain and pastor alike to breathe in Wisdom's counsel and then offer others words of grace and guidance."" --Nancy Ellett Allison Pastor, Holy Covenant United Church of Christ, Charlotte, NC Jann Aldredge-Clanton, PhD, is an oncology chaplain at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and Adjunct Professor of