To the masters of war:
which has been passed on to me and many
by abolitionists and fleeing slaves and war resisters,
by refugees and olive pickers and campus prophets,
by steadfast champions of love and queer friends
who've insisted that acting up, not lashing out,
is faithful and true;
In my faith tradition,
g-d puts in the human heart the tools necessary
for planting and watering, gardening and picking;
g-d insists that stealing land and starving children
is profanity, sacrilege and self-inflicted violence;
g-d cautions the human hand to beat every sword
into a plowshare, study war no more,
and break bread with the feared and fearsome.
Tonight against this story of garden, grace and gift,
you are once again promising that the next catastrophe
will do us a world of good, will secure borders
you've consecrated, will show the dark and evil other
who's who, and who must conquer history;
Hiroshima will end the cold war before it's begun,
or at least Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
whatever else you decide to explode on whole cities.
Vietnam, and then Korea, and then the first Gulf War, 
and then the second; and now Ukraine and Gaza and:
when will we ever learn, when will we ever, ever learn
that your promises are calculated only
to pollute holy soil and demonize g-dly peoples
and enrich the already rich, as they study not stars,
not diseases, not mysteries, but how to make war
more, more, more profitable.
In my faith tradition,
only the one who suffers for love survives
the soul-crushing violence of empires,
hijacked democratic states,
and decomposing nationalist projects.
In my faith tradition,
only the one who does justice,
treats all others with compassion
and walks in grateful humility with g-d lives
to sing a morning song of life restored
and hope renewed.
Tonight I am powerless to do any more than pray,
and this drives me hard to my knees, weeping:
for every child, every family, every people
targeted by missiles of war;
for every farmer sitting down to supper,
for every row planted, every garden, every grove;
and for the masters of war whose best days
are given to imagining mayhem and
catastrophe, starvation and drone-designed-death.
G-d, have mercy on us all.
G-d, have mercy on us all.
Stay the hand of violence tonight.
Have mercy on us all.
28 May 2025
Bethlehem, Palestine
DGJ
