I'm feeling overwhelmed by what's going on in the world right now. Unspeakable atrocities in Iraq. Bombings in Gaza. Unrest in Russia. Children seeking refuge at the border. Shootings in the streets, in schools, theatres, hospitals. A woman was murdered in my town this past Thursday. So little love and too much hate between gays and straights, Christians and Muslims, blacks, whites and browns. The world's gone mad.
Even as I cry out, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and end this," I also pray, "Lord, how can I be part of the solution and not the problem?"
I ran across a prayer by theologian Walter Brueggemann that basically longs for the same thing, but so much more eloquently. His way with words inspire me.
Deliver Us from Amnesia
God of peace, God of justice, God of freedom
We give you thanks for your cadences of peace, justice and freedom
Cadences that have surged through the lives of
Martin, Ralph, Rosa, John, Fred, Hosea, Jesse, and Andy, and that mass of nameless risk-takers who have been obedient to your dreams.
Deliver us from amnesia concerning their courage in the face of violence,
Their peace-making against hate,
And their hunger for you in a devouring economy.
Deliver us from amnesia:
Turn our memory into hope, our gratitude into energy, our well-being into impatience,
That these same cadences of your will may pulse even among us.
Amen
(Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, p. 103).