Today in our prayers for the people of Luxembourg.

Prayer for Peace

Carolyn Brock

Holy One, mysterious One, we have entered this quiet, curving, spiraling space in search of peace. Muted colors, softness and safety surround us, almost enfold and cradle us. It is good to be in this place where our minds can be still, our breathing can slow, our spirits can be soothed. We need these moments. Within them we can open our deep places, our soul places to you. And it is in you that we find the possibility of peace awakening and igniting our dreams once more.

We become weary, God. Weary of believing in the healing of all nations, weary of hoping for the reign of your compassionate justice in all lands. We become afraid of the violence and toxic hatreds that engulf the human family. We weep for the children, for the mothers and fathers of the children. We hope we will not have to hear another story of human life, beautiful, miraculous life wasted frivolously as though it were of no value.

But the world outside these walls is a sea of such stories. And at times we feel we will drown in the tears of Earth’s peoples, your people, God.

Creator, we come with dissonance in our beings: A longing for the holy peace that would name all persons sacred and in which none would hurt or destroy in your holy mountain forever more. And coexisting with this longing, a knowledge of brutality and suffering of such magnitude we cannot bear to understand the depth of its reality.

Meet us now, God, in this aching, yearning, empty space and break our hearts wide open. Connect us with both the suffering and the sacredness. For if you are the strand of grace between these realities, we shall be able to bear the anguish of the “not yet” as we live into the healed, holy creation of the “yet to be.”

Breathe your enlivening spirit upon our weary frames. Wipe the tears from our eyes, lift the dark curtain from our minds, enflame our cold hearts with the bright joy of your love. Speak peace, your peace into the silence of this moment, creator. And we shall believe it in this moment and work for it in all the moments to come. In the name of your son, Jesus, we pray. Amen.