For the Living of These Days

Prayers for a Troubled World

Kavanaugh

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621894766
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This is a collection of Joan Kavanaugh's post-9/11 public pastoral prayers delivered at The Riverside Church in New York City. Written with a newspaper in one hand and Bible in the other, they address the issues of human struggle and world crisis that have touched all of our lives in this era of terrorism, anxiety, and global conflict. Prophetic and pastoral, the prayers focus on contemporary themes of conflict, violence, poverty, racism, injustice, hope, and human longing from spiritual, psychological, and biblical perspectives. They are a resource for all who want to deepen their faith as they face a world deep in turmoil.

One

The World in Crisis

“Grant Us Wisdom, Grant Us Courage”

All meaningful and lasting change
begins on the inside.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

9/11

Eternal God: Shepherd, Redeemer, Savior,

This morning we need You, and we need each other.

Let us join in a moment of silence and solidarity with all who have died and all who love them, for our hearts are with them.

O God of life . . .

Today we return to You from a wasteland of terror and violence and cruelty.

We come as refugees . . . lost and stunned.

We come thirsty and hungry for You.

We come with fear for our future and for our children.

We come feeling vulnerable, our safety shattered along with our towers of economic and military strength.

We come from a world torn apart by rising fanaticism, intolerance, and injustice.

We come in frustration and anger, and a deep, deep sadness.

And yet, even through the unspeakable horror of this week, You have clearly been with us.

We have seen Your presence in the heroism and courage of rescuers who risked their own lives for strangers.

We have seen Your face in the exhausted faces of firemen and policemen and rescue workers who toiled beyond exhaustion to find survivors.

We have seen Your love in the rivers of generosity and compassion that poured through thousands of volunteers who went to help with gifts of medical aid and blood, food, socks, and prayers.

We have seen Your courage in the brave passengers who sacrificed their own lives to save countless others.

We have seen with our own eyes this week that You are with us in the valley of the shadow of death, in the presence of our enemies.

We have seen You in the power of our deepened sense of connection with each other, transcending all that we ever, in pettier moments, allowed to divide us.

It has been a dark week, winds of evil blowing that we have smelled in the very air around us. And now we turn to You to be that light, that inextinguishable light that will overcome this darkness of ours. In these desperate times, when the world is endangered and hope seems small, and the tides of revenge are running high, we need Your light and wisdom to show us the way forward.

You are not the God of hate we have seen worshiped this week. You are the God of life. And as our nation strategizes its response, we must all remember that You place before us life and death, and You ask us always to choose life.

Teach us, and our world community, what this means.

Teach us before it is too late that violence begets violence, and that these new forms of warfare have no victors.

Teach us that we are perpetrators of violence as well as its victims, that we cannot isolate ourselves from suffering in this world or live in relative luxury for ourselves alone.

Teach us that fanatics and terrorists are born under conditions of suffering and injustice and poverty.

Teach us that religious fanaticism of all persuasions always has, and always will have, a high body count.

Teach us that hatred ceases not when it is met with hatred, but when it is met with justice and compassion.

If we really want to root out terrorists, we must go not merely to their cells and training camps but to the conditions of human injustice and dogmatic arrogance that breed terrorism in the first place.

Teach us to be wary of turning our enemies into Satan, lest we find that we are infected with the same cancer.

Teach us to demonize no country or religion; for God, You speak to all of us, not in English or Arabic or Hebrew, but in the universal language of human suffering.

Teach our world leaders to listen to the voices of suffering if they want to build a coalition for a peaceful and secure world.

Teach us to be moderate and wise.

Teach us that love is our most essential, perhaps our only, means of survival.

O God of love and life, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.

Give us sufficient light to see Your will.

Reenter our lives that we might put goodness, not vengeance, at the center.

Center our lives on faith, not fear.

When our strength wanes, help us to rely upon Yours.

For in the power of Your love, we are afflicted but not crushed, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. Your love will heal our broken places and make us whole again.

We pray for the healing of the whole world, including our enemies.

Make us all instruments of a lasting peace.

Amen.

Facing Terrorism

God of Healing and Redemption,

We come today seeking guidance and strength. A storm has broken in our country and in the world, challenging our most basic assumptions. And we have not yet seen the full strength of this storm. Our country is shaken. Our easy optimism is shaken. Our prosperity and economic strength are shaken. Our religious institutions are shaken. An angry, vengeful David whom we cannot even see—a David armed with a slingshot full of unknown horrors—is aiming right at our Goliath. We are dismayed at the ease with which a rogue band of fanatical terrorists is disrupting the world we call “civilized.”

O God, we come before You today with many questions, afraid of the unknown. Our military is bombing a hidden enemy whose strength and appeal is surely fueled by injustice and poverty and ignorance. Our world is small. Has it awakened a sleeping giant of hatred brewed in a clash between ancient cultures and modern ways? Will it ever be possible for people of different faiths and cultures to see that we worship one God? Will we ever understand that You, the living God, ask us to look into each other’s eyes—Jewish, Christian, Muslim eyes, eyes of any faith—and see in those eyes our brothers and our sisters? Can we claim to believe in You who loves each and every one of us, and yet live in a world that tolerates such a discrepancy between rich and poor, privilege and suffering?

Do we dare, all who call ourselves religious, to be a peaceful people of God, fighting fanaticism and terror and suffering with the weapons of faith and tolerance and compassion? Can our Goliath nation that consumes more than its share of the world’s supplies look at itself as part of the problem, understanding our own role in the evil that has been unleashed? Can we build a coalition of nations that will outlaw terrorism and violence, yet listen to the voices of suffering to build a new vision: a new kind of Kingdom?

O God, You are an inextinguishable light in t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part 1: The World in Crisis
• Part 2: In Search of the Beloved Community
• Part 3: Seasons of Longing