Race and Prayer

Collected Voices, Many Dreams

Malcolm Boyd

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9780819225481
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The damage done by hatred and prejudice -- based on race, sexual orientation, religion, or gender -- runs very deep. The damage is often invisible, but it simmers beneath the surface anyway. In Race and Prayer, Malcolm Boyd and Chester Talton have collected poems, prayers, and prose that bring the anger and frustration to light, and ultimately, they hope, to a place of reconciliation and healing.

Race and Prayer is divided into five sections: Suffering and Anger; Prejudice and Hatred; Diversity; Reconciliation and Healing; and Growth in Understanding and Sharing. Contributors to this collection range in age from teenagers to the elderly, and include men and women from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, all of whom speak honestly of their own experiences, heartbreaks, and hopes. Twelve cartoons from three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Conrad, editorial cartoonist at the Los Angeles Times, add to the power of this collection.

IV

Reconciliation and Healing

O God of justice and mercy,

Bless all who suffer in silence:

those who believe and feel they are unwanted, and are taken

for granted,

those who have found strength to live on in their struggles,

also those who have not found strength.

Bless all who suffer because of their ignorance:

those who know not the taboos of the larger society,

what to say or not say, how to act or not act,

whether in the eyes of the law, or the prejudiced powers that be.

Bless all who have no choice anywhere:

those who could no longer live in their “homelands,”

and have not had the opportunity to live out their capacity and

capability here,

those who have to be content with what they could avail

for themselves.

Bless all who associate only with their likes:

for it is only here that they find strength and support, comfort

and help—

call it a “ghetto”;

O Lord, bless all “ghettos.”

Bless all who rest their hopes in their next generation:

those who quietly struggle and endure pain,

as they continue to diligently live to find life and meaning

for themselves.

Amen.

—DAVID CHEE

There was almost a definite rhythm to our marching, Jesus.

About twenty of us had been marching in a snowstorm, in a constant circular movement in front of the apartment house, for nearly three hours, on an afternoon in 1962.

We were African Americans and whites, men and women, students, professors, clergy, and schoolteachers. We carried signs reading “Negroes Can’t Live Here,” “We Oppose Discrimination,” “End Segregated Housing,” and “Freedom.”

The reason we were marching was that a young black woman, the daughter of a faculty member at the large urban university located one block away from the site of our demonstration, had been denied housing in the apartment building which we were now picketing.

The demonstration was similar to other picketing in which I had participated. Some passers-by were friendly and smiled, others coldly refused to accept handbills we were handing out, a few stopped to ask questions, and at least one man started shouting.

A TV cameraman stepped out of a car parked nearby and started shooting some clips for the eleven o’clock news that night. A reporter arrived, talked with several of us, and jotted down notes on pieces of paper.

It got colder. The snow was falling quickly now, blanketing the sidewalk, and the wind blew it into our eyes. I had to take off my gloves and dig my bare hands deep into my overcoat pockets, briskly flexing them to restore circulation. My feet were cold and my breath became a small cloud of vapor in front of my face.

We prayed for you to give us courage, Jesus. We felt our prayer was answered when the young black woman was invited to move into the apartment building a few weeks later. Thank you, Jesus.

—MALCOLM BOYD

A PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD

O God, I call your name when I am in trouble. And I believe you have always heard me. And of course I want you to do what I want so that I can feel better about myself. And I want you to be on my side protecting me from my enemy.

But today, I encountered someone who doesn’t look like me, or act like me. This person has a different idea of you. This person claims that you are on his side protecting him from all his troubles too! To be honest, I have a little trouble liking this person. I feel threatened. If I accept his version of you, does that mean I will lose my relationship with you? And when I feel threatened, I feel like striking back at him. How dare he try to take you away from me!

Then I caught myself praying for your help to do that. I know what I was praying for was probably not what you have in mind for how we are to live together in this world. But I can’t help it. So God, help me! Help me work through my confusion. Help me to see that you are bigger than what I think you are. Help me comprehend how you can be on all sides of the conflicting parties. Help me to see that you have more than me to protect and support and love.

Jesus said that you made the sun rise on the evil and the good land, sent rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Now I am beginning to understand what that means, because good and evil, righteous and unrighteous, friends and enemies are but categories that we human beings created to make the world more simple than what you have intended. Help me live out what Jesus was trying to teach me: to pray for and even love my enemy. Help me rise above the either-or binary approach to living and see your diverse creation with new eyes—through the eyes of my enemies, through the eyes of your son, Jesus Christ. Guide me in Christ’s way so that I can see your face more clearly and be mo...