Every Sunday, we do “prayers of the people” at church. We pray for our church, our community and the world. We pray for the sick, the lost and those in darkness.
The next thing we do is a prayer of confession. After a moment of silent confession, we say these words aloud…The Deacon or Celebrant then says Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
The Bishop when present, or the Priest, stands and says
Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.
Things left undone weighs on me, so many things unsaid or not generously done. I always have to stop and give that part of my confession some thought.
But what I want to say in this, my art blog is that I have such a load of unfinished paintings!
I counted at least 20 small and large unfinished, undone parts of my life sitting on shelves and waiting for attention. Maybe not as significant as my other sins which I do confess, but I can't feel at ease until I finish some of these unfinished canvases. So many of these I began in a rush of excitement from the direct observation of my thrilling subject but allowed distractions to intrude and ended up setting it all aside thinking I can finish later from a couple of photos. The prospect of getting back to it from a photo is never very exciting and I put it off. And then I start another unfinished piece!
I vowed to finish a few of these now in July while I have some time between summer adventures.
