Holy One, you audaciously call us the “salt of the earth,” but who can hear you above the deafening roar of retaliation and mayhem? You say that your followers are “the light of the world,” but what do you make of us, we who stumble in the darkness of despair? You insist that “our light shines before others, so that they may see our good works and given glory to God in heaven,” but what if our efforts are insignificant when compared to the degradation and injustice that confronts us?
O Lord, in the face of suffering across our planet and this land now veiled in darkness, can you even hear the cries of your people? Do you perceive the injustice committed in your name? Are you aware of the cruelty committed against all your creation, but nevertheless justified by those who pervert your Word?
Yet you have promised that we are your children and will not forsake us – even to the end of our days. You have sworn to be faithful, even when we have abandoned you. You have suffused us with grace, so that we may set our sights on your hope once more.
Could it be when even a single voice is raised in opposition to wholesale complicity, it becomes salt for those weary of fabrication and incivility? What if acts of kindness, however seemingly remote in the face of cruelty, become the illumination that lifts up the discouraged and disheartened? Imagine if even the seemingly little that we strive to do becomes yeast, expanding the possibilities of what had seemed unlikely at best?
Hear our prayer, Divine Maker. In your mercy, heed the distress of those who suffer – human and creature alike. Hear the cry of those who despair of waiting in vain. In these weary times, cover us with thy grace. Come and come quickly, we pray. Amen.
Amen and thank you so much.
Amen, Maren, and thank you as well.
This is so powerful! Sometimes, lament is all we can do to sustain us until hope is reborn.
Thank you, Debra, and well said.