Prayer In War Time

Holy One,

The Holy Land,

is ravaged.

Its scorched earth

is awash in

random massacres

and intentional carnage.

The War in Ukraine

has murdered, maimed,

and annihilated

families, homes,

and cities

for

1 year,

7 months,

2 weeks, and

6 days.

32 other lands,

just as holy,

slump under the burden of

terrorist insurgencies,

civil wars,

and drug wars

that we hardly have

the emotional stamina to

recognize.

It is as if the world

is vomiting,

retching from

a deep internal disease

that we can no longer

pretend is in remission.

So we turn to You

and beg You to intercede.

We send up a bat signal.

Attention God,

or Spirit, or Jesus,

or Yahweh, or Allah,

or the cosmos,

please, please, please

make all of this

go away!

But

The fault, dear Brutus,

Is not in our stars,

but in ourselves.

There’s the rub.

The fault lies with us,

and only us.

It’s not history,

or fate,

or genetics,

or bad luck,

or Mom and Dad,

it’s us and the choices we make.

Mother Teresa said

we have no peace,

because we have

forgotten that we

belong to each other.

Help us to know that

we belong to each other.

Help us breath in breaths

that are more than our own.

Help us have hearts that

beat in sync with one another.

Help us sink back into You,

into the source of everything.

You are always there,

but we have yet to learn to

see You in each other.

Help us experience You

in all,

through all,

and

with all.

AMEN