A Prayer To Hold The Grief Of Our World
--
God Of All Things,
We are overwhelmed with the news cycles,
We are overwhelmed with the images on our screens,
We are overwhelmed with the anger and sadness of the world.
We wonder what good can come of such hatred?
What good can come from destruction?
What good can come from another election cycle?
We long for your peace to reign,
And we long to be people of peace,
Yet we know peace can only come on the other side of grief and loss, pain, and suffering.
We invite you into our world,
Not in abstraction,
But in real, tangible ways.
We weep for the deaths of your beloved children, whose lives were taken from us too soon:
Jacob
Cannon
Breonna
George
Ahmaud
Atatiana
Botham
Philando
Sandra
Tamir
And so many others.
Too many to name.
We hold them in our hearts now...
We know you are a good Father, who showers your children with good gifts.
But now, we are weeping, and we need you to comfort us in our grief.
We weep for the pain that death causes, knowing that nothing will ever be the same for the families who have buried their children.
We weep for the partisan rifts in our society, for the misinformation that is gobbled up by those too hurt to care to know the truth.
We weep for the leaders in positions of power who are more intent on holding those powerful positions than improving the lives of those they are supposed to serve.
We weep over the social media fights, the looting, the physical fights, and the men who carry semi-automatic weapons into the fray, believing themselves to be the authority of the hour.
We weep for the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, who will never again laugh with the loved ones who have been slain.
We weep for those consumed with conspiracy theories, and whose online activity is proving destructive offline.
We weep for the neighborhoods, the communities, the schools, and the churches who have been under the boot of oppression for generations, and who have to endure another day of injustice. One more day is too much.
We weep for those who speak past each other, choosing memes over presence and curiosity, choosing partisan ideology over intentional relationships.
We weep for the wives and husbands, the mothers and fathers, the daughters and sons who say worrying goodbyes to their loved ones in uniform each day, who have sworn to defend and protect, and yet find themselves in impossible situations, because of problems whose fault is not theirs alone to bear.
We weep for our society's inability to solve these generations-old problems. We weep for the politicians too beholden to powerful interests, rather than daily pursuing the common good.
We weep for the families who have been torn apart on account of warring political factions. We weep for their family reunions that are cold, and their tense conversations where one speaks past another time and again.
We weep for the empty tables,
The empty rooms,
The empty backyards,
The empty parks,
The empty schools,
The empty office buildings,
The empty restaurants,
The empty bank accounts,
The empty church buildings,
And the empty hearts, that are a result of this global pandemic.
We weep for the sin and the pain and the destruction that all people have created on account of lifting ourselves up over and above our mandate to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We weep for those who see their individual rights as more sacred than preserving the health and well being of the community.
We weep for those whose Christianity is but a shadow of the Way of Jesus and has become twisted with a Nationalism that has nothing to do with that Way.
We weep for those who claim to speak for God, but whose words and demeanor have nothing of God's Spirit in them.
We weep for those who are scared.
We weep for those who are angry.
We weep for those who are sick.
We weep for those who are exhausted.
For we are scared, angry, sick, and exhausted too.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Come not simply to take us from this mess, but to renew our hope, our resolve, and our courage to be partners with you in redeeming this mess.
May you join us together in spite of our differences.
May you help us truly see that we have more in common than we care to realize most of the time.
May you help us tune out the politicos and the talking heads, and tune into your Spirit, who is always calling us deeper into love, into presence, and into transformation.
May your Kingdom come,
May your will be done,
On earth, as it is in Heaven.
May we choose this, over and above every other option.
May it be so.
Amen.