A Prayer at Evergreen Memorial
Cemetery
Santa Cruz, California
Dave Grishaw-Jones (Peace United Church)
God
of wind and fog, Spirit in great green trees,
Holy
Spark of Life in every being and, yes, Being itself:
We
praise you, we thank you
for
this holy place of resting and remembering and being.
We
praise you, we thank you
for
the beauty here, and the peace here,
and
for all those friends who’ve worked tirelessly
through
the years to make it a place
of
resting and remembering and loving.
We
gather here this sweet May morning,
and
we know that this is holy ground.
God
of our ancestors, God of all ancestors,
God
of the tribes and nations and wise souls
who
have called this very ground sacred and holy:
We
remember today all those who have lived
and
served and given their lives that peace might prevail.
We
gather them up in our hearts, in our memories now.
We
thank you for their courage and devotion,
for
their lives and their hearts and their holy days.
God
of all peoples, all the peoples who ever were,
and
all of us now, and all the peoples who ever will be:
We
pray today for grace, for humility and for courage.
We
pray today for the nation we love,
for
our leaders, for our public servants of all kinds,
for
our teachers at all levels, for all of us together.
Make
us bold in loving one another.
Make
us brave in serving one another.
Make
us wildly creative in pursuing the common good.
God
of the living and the dead,
Help
us in all things to honor those who’ve died,
Those
who’ve made loving sacrifices of many kinds.
Help
us to honor their gifts
as
we teach our children the things that make for peace.
Help
us to honor their lives
as
we show our children the sacred good in all beings.
Help
us to honor their spirits
as
we sing our children love songs
that
bring hope to their human hearts.
We
pray in your great spirit,
We
pray in your many, many names,
We
pray in humility around all we cannot know for certain,
And
we pray in commitment to the holy ground
and
the holy memories and the holy lives
we
remember this day.
Amen
and amen.
 | |
| Great-Great-Grandfather John H. Woodbury, killed at Spotsylvania, May 19, 1864. |
