vitalwholeness

Ecumenical partners throughout the world have set aside this Saturday, September 7, as a day of prayer for Syria. Whether you pray with others or alone, consider lifting up your own prayers of peace for that place and all places in conflict.

And here is mine:

Eternal Spirit of love and joy:

We have not done well in tending your garden
loving our neighbor
or aspiring to your purpose and vision for us
and so we pray again and again.
We pray the prayers of failed love
that the lurking, buried menace of hate
not take the day, but rather
be crowded out by our entirely unrealistic
and naive hopefulness.
We are fools, to be sure, to pray in such a world
where all evidence confirms our folly.
So take the little prayers of your clowns
and heal your world
in places like Syria
and then the next place and the next,
for your son, the prince of peace,
never wearied of praying for your kingdom
even as the world’s kingdoms crashed upon his head.

Have mercy, O God, have mercy.
Amen.