A PRAYER FOR THE WORLD TODAY:
God of all, God of our future, God of our past,
We pray this day for all who suffer:
For the hungry and the cold,
For the beaten and the wounded,
For the distant enemy and the nearby neighbor.
Bless their broken hearts with courage,
and their wounded flesh with rest and peace.
Move in every artery, in every vein, in every breath,
with purpose, with healing and with grace.
God of all peoples and all dreams, God of every land,
We pray for those whose anger moves them
To consider violence and cruelty and meanness.
Make your sun to shine, your wind to blow,
so that the angry consider their humanity,
pray deeply on their spirit's purpose,
and choose the path of compassion and restraint.
God whose light shines in the dark of night,
Whose mystery renders every certainty less certain,
We pray today for the grieving and the anxious:
in Boston and Watertown, in Texas and Iran,
in Russia and Chechnya, in unnamed slums hidden from view.
May your light pierce our darkness once again,
unsettle our settled assumptions of what must be,
and move us to faith and prayer and peace.
Amen and amen.
