World in Prayer

This Week’s Prayer

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 2, 2020

The World in Prayer team member who wrote this week’s prayers has spent the past 6 weeks catching, taming, and finding homes for a litter of feral kittens. It has, she says, definitely affected how she understands God, and how she prays for the world. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she writes, “if these prayers are rather – well – kitten-shaped.”

I. Courtship. They appeared in my yard, the terrified but oh-so-proud young mama cat, and her four just-starting-to-explore adorable kittens. Me, I spent long hours sitting absolutely still. Marveling. Waiting. For them to get used to my scent. For them to get used to my presence. For them to get used to my voice.

And I thought with awe – and wonder – and thanksgiving – about God. Our God, who loves us with such patient adoration. Waiting, for us to notice God with us. Waiting for us to abandon fear, for curiosity. Waiting for us to dare to approach. Waiting for us to dare to be loved.

Holy and loving God, we adore you and we praise you, because you love with infinite patience even those that the world despises, ignores, or rejects:

  • The Oromo – the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, where unrest has spread after the death and funeral of 34-year-old singer Hachalu Hundessa. His songs advocating their rights have become anthems in a wave of protests in that country.
  • More than 40,000 impoverished people have been evicted from their homes since March in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, primarily in communities already displaced by violence, droughts, or floods.
  • Strawberry pickers brought from Morocco to Spain are not considered essential workers, and are not being provided even the most basic hygiene needed to protect them against the new coronavirus.
  • Sex workers in Thailand (more than 125,000 of them, from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam), as well as in Bangladesh (an estimated 100,000) – have been jobless and facing abuse from their dissatisfied brokers since the coronavirus pandemic forced bars and other entertainment venues to close. For many, this illegal work is the only way they can survive and provide for their children.
  • According to the United Nations, the pandemic is reversing progress on ending child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). An additional 13 million girls could be married off and 2 million more could undergo FGM in the next decade, beyond what would have been expected.
  • Indigenous Amazon communities in Brazil, who have no immunity to external diseases and whose communal lifestyle rules out social distancing – and who are not receiving adequate help during the pandemic from the Brazilian government.

II. Trapping. I put out food. Each day, moving a little bit closer. Each day, with breath held, waiting for them to come eat. Then the food went into the cat carrier, and if they wanted it, they had to go inside. And then one day, while they were eating, I gently shut the door, and brought them inside my house.

And I prayed…for all who don’t know if a sweet enticement will turn out to be a trap or an opening to a world of joy. For all who are trapped. For all who are being freed. For all who hold open doors to new life.

Holy and gracious God, whose will it is always to bless, stretch out your protecting arms over:

  • Hong Kong, as China’s new “national security law” for Hong Kong takes effect, criminalizing what had been protected speech (i.e., the right to criticize the Chinese government), and allowing mainland Chinese security personnel to legally operate in Hong Kong with impunity.
  • The dead, the missing, and the grieving after a landslide at a jade mining site in northern Myanmar killed at least 162.
  • The United States, where there are way too many people who believe their right not to wear masks or take other public health precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 is more important than protecting one another; and many others who cannot understand that the best way to have a healthy economy is to have healthy population.
  • Scientists in Canada, South Africa, and Zimbabwe who are helping Botswana try to determine the cause of the “completely unprecedented” deaths of more than 350 elephants since May

III. Delight. As I had known they would, the kittens came to trust. They learned to play, to pounce, to wrestle. They discovered that being petted was Very Good, Very Very Good. The legs grew longer, and the purrs grew stronger, and my arms or my lap were usually filled with a cuddle puddle. They learned to ask – often way too loudly, and way too early in the morning – for the food and loving they craved.

And I heard God’s prayer for us: What would this world be like, if we could hold each other in patient love? If we could trust, without pushing, that just loving and waiting in love were enough to transform the world? What if we could love enough to truly hear one another, and to answer – even if it’s momentarily inconvenient – with infinitely deep love?

Holy and delighted God, smile with us in pleasure, as the restorative power of the Black Lives Matter movement spreads across the world:

  • In France, where the global anti-racism protests led the armed forces ministry to provide local authorities with a guide to 100 Africans who fought for France in World War II, so that streets may be named after them. Presenting the list, Junior Defense Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said, “the names, faces, lives of these African heroes must become part of our lives as free citizens, because without them we would not be free.”
  • In the United Kingdom,where the Lloyd’s of London insurance market apologized for its “shameful” role in the 18th and 19th Century Atlantic slave trade, and pledged to fund opportunities for Black and ethnic minority people.
  • In Nigeria, where leaders of the Igbo people hope the BLM movement will inspire similar change for their people, many of whom are the descendants of slaves and still face significant discrimination.

IV. Setting free. The time came. I wish I could have kept them all. I wish I could have kept that wild, but maybe-just-beginning-to-trust mama cat, and taught her how to be loved. I fell in love with the kittens, and wished they could have stayed with me forever. But they were ready. Feral mama, still very wary, was spayed and went to live on a friend’s ranch, where she will be cherished and invited into as much love as she can accept. The kittens were chosen with love, and this weekend will be on their way to wonderful families.

And I heard again God’s prayer for us: that incredible, deep, wanting all to be well with us. With every single one of us. With every single fiber of this planet, of this universe. With every single nation. Filling us with love…and then sending us forth, in love, to be love.

Holy and amazing God, rejoice with us at every tiny sign that your love is at work in the world, that the Kingdom of God is indeed at hand:

  • From Kenya to Tanzania, Ethiopia to Malawi, Liberia to South Africa, tens of thousands of ordinary African women battle Covid-19 in their communities. Recruited and trained by governments and charities, the unsung army of mostly female and mostly unpaid community health workers are going door to door in remote villages and urban slums, talking about the virus, showing residents how to wash hands or don a mask, patiently answering their questions. Regardless of the risk to themselves. They do it in love.

And God said, go forth in love, to be love.
Amen.

 

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World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 2, 2020

The World in Prayer team member who wrote this week’s prayers has spent the past 6 weeks catching, taming, and finding homes for a litter of feral kittens. It has, she says, definitely affected how she understands God, and how she prays for the world. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she writes, “if these prayers are rather – well – kitten-shaped.”

I. Courtship. They appeared in my yard, the terrified but oh-so-proud young mama cat, and her four just-starting-to-explore adorable kittens. Me, I spent long hours sitting absolutely still. Marveling. Waiting. For them to get used to my scent. For them to get used to my presence. For them to get used to my voice.

And I thought with awe – and wonder – and thanksgiving – about God. Our God, who loves us with such patient adoration. Waiting, for us to notice God with us. Waiting for us to abandon fear, for curiosity. Waiting for us to dare to approach. Waiting for us to dare to be loved.

Holy and loving God, we adore you and we praise you, because you love with infinite patience even those that the world despises, ignores, or rejects:

  • The Oromo – the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, where unrest has spread after the death and funeral of 34-year-old singer Hachalu Hundessa. His songs advocating their rights have become anthems in a wave of protests in that country.
  • More than 40,000 impoverished people have been evicted from their homes since March in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, primarily in communities already displaced by violence, droughts, or floods.
  • Strawberry pickers brought from Morocco to Spain are not considered essential workers, and are not being provided even the most basic hygiene needed to protect them against the new coronavirus.
  • Sex workers in Thailand (more than 125,000 of them, from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam), as well as in Bangladesh (an estimated 100,000) – have been jobless and facing abuse from their dissatisfied brokers since the coronavirus pandemic forced bars and other entertainment venues to close. For many, this illegal work is the only way they can survive and provide for their children.
  • According to the United Nations, the pandemic is reversing progress on ending child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). An additional 13 million girls could be married off and 2 million more could undergo FGM in the next decade, beyond what would have been expected.
  • Indigenous Amazon communities in Brazil, who have no immunity to external diseases and whose communal lifestyle rules out social distancing – and who are not receiving adequate help during the pandemic from the Brazilian government.

II. Trapping. I put out food. Each day, moving a little bit closer. Each day, with breath held, waiting for them to come eat. Then the food went into the cat carrier, and if they wanted it, they had to go inside. And then one day, while they were eating, I gently shut the door, and brought them inside my house.

And I prayed…for all who don’t know if a sweet enticement will turn out to be a trap or an opening to a world of joy. For all who are trapped. For all who are being freed. For all who hold open doors to new life.

Holy and gracious God, whose will it is always to bless, stretch out your protecting arms over:

  • Hong Kong, as China’s new “national security law” for Hong Kong takes effect, criminalizing what had been protected speech (i.e., the right to criticize the Chinese government), and allowing mainland Chinese security personnel to legally operate in Hong Kong with impunity.
  • The dead, the missing, and the grieving after a landslide at a jade mining site in northern Myanmar killed at least 162.
  • The United States, where there are way too many people who believe their right not to wear masks or take other public health precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 is more important than protecting one another; and many others who cannot understand that the best way to have a healthy economy is to have healthy population.
  • Scientists in Canada, South Africa, and Zimbabwe who are helping Botswana try to determine the cause of the “completely unprecedented” deaths of more than 350 elephants since May

III. Delight. As I had known they would, the kittens came to trust. They learned to play, to pounce, to wrestle. They discovered that being petted was Very Good, Very Very Good. The legs grew longer, and the purrs grew stronger, and my arms or my lap were usually filled with a cuddle puddle. They learned to ask – often way too loudly, and way too early in the morning – for the food and loving they craved.

And I heard God’s prayer for us: What would this world be like, if we could hold each other in patient love? If we could trust, without pushing, that just loving and waiting in love were enough to transform the world? What if we could love enough to truly hear one another, and to answer – even if it’s momentarily inconvenient – with infinitely deep love?

Holy and delighted God, smile with us in pleasure, as the restorative power of the Black Lives Matter movement spreads across the world:

  • In France, where the global anti-racism protests led the armed forces ministry to provide local authorities with a guide to 100 Africans who fought for France in World War II, so that streets may be named after them. Presenting the list, Junior Defense Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said, “the names, faces, lives of these African heroes must become part of our lives as free citizens, because without them we would not be free.”
  • In the United Kingdom,where the Lloyd’s of London insurance market apologized for its “shameful” role in the 18th and 19th Century Atlantic slave trade, and pledged to fund opportunities for Black and ethnic minority people.
  • In Nigeria, where leaders of the Igbo people hope the BLM movement will inspire similar change for their people, many of whom are the descendants of slaves and still face significant discrimination.

IV. Setting free. The time came. I wish I could have kept them all. I wish I could have kept that wild, but maybe-just-beginning-to-trust mama cat, and taught her how to be loved. I fell in love with the kittens, and wished they could have stayed with me forever. But they were ready. Feral mama, still very wary, was spayed and went to live on a friend’s ranch, where she will be cherished and invited into as much love as she can accept. The kittens were chosen with love, and this weekend will be on their way to wonderful families.

And I heard again God’s prayer for us: that incredible, deep, wanting all to be well with us. With every single one of us. With every single fiber of this planet, of this universe. With every single nation. Filling us with love…and then sending us forth, in love, to be love.

Holy and amazing God, rejoice with us at every tiny sign that your love is at work in the world, that the Kingdom of God is indeed at hand:

  • From Kenya to Tanzania, Ethiopia to Malawi, Liberia to South Africa, tens of thousands of ordinary African women battle Covid-19 in their communities. Recruited and trained by governments and charities, the unsung army of mostly female and mostly unpaid community health workers are going door to door in remote villages and urban slums, talking about the virus, showing residents how to wash hands or don a mask, patiently answering their questions. Regardless of the risk to themselves. They do it in love.

And God said, go forth in love, to be love.
Amen.

 

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, 25 June 2020

(Many thanks to Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor/author, Nadia Bolz-Weber, for some of the prayer petitions.)

God who is called by many names, God of this earth and all its peoples, today we are crying out, how long, O Lord?

How long until we can touch our parents and beloved elders? (even as we thank you for each day we have with them.)

How long until we can have things on our calendar to look forward to that don’t involve staring at a computer? (even as we thank you for the abundance of celebrations and movies and live music and meals with friends that we have been granted up until a few months ago….even as we thank you for the gift which electronics can be to us.)

How long until we can gather together again to sing your praise? (even as we thank you for calling an assembly in the streets to overturn the tables of injustice and racism.)

How long until the dying ceases, the brutality ends, the anxiety abates?

How long until justice rains down like waters?

How long, O Lord?

How long until the coronavirus pandemic stops holding our lives and our world in the thrall of fear? (even as we are aware of the increasing numbers of both cases and deaths in Brazil, Mexico, India, Pakistan, and the United States.)

How long for the recovery of the people in six states in southern Mexico, hit by an earthquake this week, killing six people, and destroying many buildings? (even as we are grateful that the government’s alert system worked well, saving many more lives.)

How long until our LGBTQIA siblings in sub-Saharan Africa are free from criminal prosecution for their same-sex loving relationships? (even as the members of the lower house of parliament in Gabon have voted for decriminalization, a significant first step.)

How long until people dealing with cancer in Zimbabwe can get proper treatment, as the health care system has been compromised by the corruption of the health minister? (even as health care workers are making every effort to assist the sick and suffering.)

How long until the massive plume of dust from the Sahara Desert reaches the southeastern United States, bringing with it the possibility of multiple respiratory problems and straining an already-stressed health care system? (even as awareness is raised through technology and the efforts of the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

How long until the wildfires in Arizona, United States, which have forced the evacuation of many residents, are brought under control? (even as we give thanks for the firefighters and first responders  working there.)

How Long, O Lord?

We’re not asking for a date. We’re asking for the faith that a date will come.

Amen.

World News in Prayer – Thursday, 18 June, 2020

What does the Lord ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.~ Micah 6 : 8

“My thoughts are not like your thoughts. And your ways are not like my ways,” announces the Lord. “The heavens are higher than the earth. And my ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.”  ~ Isaiah 55 : 8 – 9

Brokenness and loss of trust in leaders- political, business, media, health, education and sadly, so often, the police- is tearing us apart. When trust is broken and discrimination and injustice becomes appallingly ‘commonplace’, when daily survival is precarious, then fear and division flourish.

Jesus, Light of the World, pierce the darkness of our world and of our understanding.

For many there is the added trauma of grieving, not only the loss of loved ones while separated by ‘social distancing’, but having that loss compounded by bigotry, racism and injustice. Pain, frustration and anger become overwhelming. Words are clumsy tools at times like this, but let us meet the Christ within – in the still center in each of us where you tell us that the kingdom of God already is…

Jesus, Light of the World, come in your loving compassion; pierce the darkness of our world and of our understanding.

We celebrate and give thanks for those people – often of color and of many ethnicities- who confront this evil with strength, offering the transformative way through a firm, unswerving stand for justice, truth, love and mercy. They remind us that we are all one family created from God’s loving heart, and while giving us free will, longs for us to choose to return and follow the Divine way, not our way.

We remember with thanksgiving Patrick Hutchinson, a black personal trainer in London, UK who, with friends forming a barrier, rescued an English Defense League white protestor from possible death after being abandoned by his EDL colleagues in a counter-protest to Black Lives Matter. We remember the leaders of the Diné people (Navajo) in the USA, providing interventions and raising the profile of so many First Nation and Indigenous peoples suffering not only disproportionately during the Covid-19 pandemic but from systemic marginalization and injustice including arrest and deaths in custody. This is a worldwide evil also present in the nations of Australia, Zimbabwe, Chechnya and Amazonia in South America. We give thanks for the wise leadership offered this week by the Dalai Lama in exile and lockdown in India where Covid-19 is prevalent.

Jesus, Light of the World, heal our selfishness and help us reset our values to where each one of us truly looks out for one other as one human family under God.

Help us to dare to travel the road to a new way of living in your Light and and be open to the promptings of your Holy Spirit.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me;

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

 

Spirit of the Living God, move among us all;

Make us one in heart and mind, make us one in love.

Humble, caring, selfless, sharing –

Spirit of the living God, move among us all.

                                                                            Daniel Iverson

Hear us, loving, living God, as we pray from the depths of our broken hearts. Amen and amen

 

 

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, 11 June 2020

Christ, Jesus our friend and companion in the streets, in police stations, on curbsides, at take out restaurants, in hospital waiting rooms, in public health offices that are conducting contact tracing phone calls, in hallways of governments, and with those who listen to testimony. You, Lord, who wait for us to open the door, to admit our faults and to forgive. Give us courage to do the hard acts, to love mightily and give tenderly.

Holy Spirit – comfort us. Soften our touch, blend our voices, clarify our minds and fire up our hearts for the work at hand.

Oh Lord, we ask for your guidance in action, word and thought.

Great One, who breathed life into clay, who continues to mold us in your many-colored image, open our hearts wide, crack them open, get our juices flowing for justice and mercy.

Holy Mystery, you carry us when we are sorrowful, broken down in deepest grief and unable to go further. Give us rest. Give us a peace that is beyond our ability to find alone.

Our Higher Power, you have shaken the foundations of what we thought to be order, you have removed the blindfolds to our unjust acts and collusion. You have upended our sense of control and turned over our tables of normalcy. Help us to seek your will and turn to your light, to seek your word.

We attend to words in the news of “police reform,” “migrant worker,” “essential workers,” “health equity,” “social distancing,” “multisystem inflammatory syndrome,”  “data control,” “roiled,” “tossed out,” “I can’t breathe,” “sir,” “spiritual bypassing,” “voting,” “voter suppression,”  “caught on film.”

Let us not forget words like “hunger,” “poverty,” “deserted,” “overrun,” “surge of cases,” “marginalized.”

We pray for Brazil and its respected public health care system and epidemiologic surveillance that has pushed back against the president and ministers who sought to suppress and minimize the data on deaths and cases due to COVID-19. We pray for the people of Manus, where the virus has circulated deep into the Amazon raising a monthly death toll to three times the average. We pray for those protesting for better health care in Paraisopolis favela in São Paulo.

We pray for a family of the Qom Indigenous Peoples who suffered at the hands of 15 police officers in Fontana, Argentina during an illegal raid. We pray that the demands for administrative and judicial investigation are swift and thorough and that the detained and beaten family members receive the care they need. We pray for the ending of institutional racism here and in all places.

Strengthen your people in Ghana as borders are closed and streets emptied. Give courage to the health care staff of Dzake Health Clinic and Peki Hospital as they prepare for COVID-19 with minimal PPE and a focus on prevention with hand-washing and visitor limitation. Help us to lean out new windows to hear sounds in other communities.

We pray for the human rights of the citizens of Hong Kong, China and the furtherance of common law principles and all types of freedoms including freedom of expression, publication, information, assembly, religion, association, that they will endure under the “one country, two systems principle.”

Continue to empower the Indian Samaritan’s work in New Delhi, India, as educators delivered coupons to the neediest families. On distribution days the coupon is exchanged for a Kit which includes 5 kg of rice, 5 kg of wheat flour, 1 liter of oil, 1 kg of sugar, 250 grams of tea, 100 grams of chili powder, 100 grams of coriander powder, 100 grams of turmeric, 1 kg of lentils, 3 bars of bathing soap, 3 bars of detergent soap, and 1 bottle of hand sanitizer.  These gifts might seem hopelessly small in the face of a growing pandemic where hospitals have to turn away patients due to lack of space, but we trust that you, in your mercy, will amplify this Kit, these your loaves and fishes nourishing community.

Amen.

 

 

 

World News in Prayer – Thursday, 4 June, 2020

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?  ~ Jeremiah 8:22

Is there no balm in Gilead, Holy God? For we, your people, desperately need a balm, a healing, a sense that the desperate pain we are feeling will come to an end. Even as people walk the streets of more than 75 cities in the United States of America, demonstrating against the deaths of African-American citizens: George Floyd, Steven Taylor, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbrey, among far too many others at the hands of the police, others are demonstrating in solidarity in London, England; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Berlin, Germany; Auckland, New Zealand; Paris, France; Copenhagen, Denmark; Milan, Italy; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Dublin, Ireland; Toronto, Canada; Perth, Australia; and many more places across the globe.

We need a balm, God of Love and Peace, a healing of the sin of racism. We need to be made whole.

All of this comes in the midst of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to sicken and kill people throughout the world, even as governments disagree on how best to contain and control the spread of the virus. Italy is reopening its borders, while the death toll in Brazil has passed 30,000, and cases in the African continent exceed 160,000, even as statistics every-where are uncertain and knowledge of the behavior of the virus remains the subject of intense medical and immunological research.

We need a balm, God of All People, a healing for our troubled bodies and spirits.

Around the world, situations of pain and threat demand our attention, and yours, O God. We grieve:

  • the death of Dr. Hu Weifeng in China, after four months of fighting Covid-19. He had been treating patients at Wuhan Central Hospital when he was stricken.
  • with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and PiniKura People (PKKP) of Western Australia at the destruction of 46,000-year-old Aborginal caves by mining giant, Rio Tinto, last Sunday.
  • with the people of Mumbai, India, as Cyclone Nisarga makes landfall, with destructive winds and driving rains, threatening life and property.
  • with a barely-literate, poor Christian couple in Pakistan who have spent the past 6 years in jail awaiting an appeal of the death sentence they received for “blasphemy”, for allegedly sending text messages insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
  • the disappearances of two activists, Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi, in Wuhan, China, after their continued reporting about the Covid-19 crisis in that province, as families and friends fear they may have been killed.

We need a balm, God of Hope, a healing for the broken places in our world.

Driven to our knees by the loss and pain, our minds and hearts filled with questions and doubts, our spirits often at their lowest ebb in these recent days, we turn to you, Father-Mother God, in desperation, knowing that only in you can we find comfort, healing, a balm for those things we cannot seem to get right on our own. And, though we are not yet able to sing in our churches, we each and all can sing on our own, so we lift our quavering and tear-filled voices:

There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole;
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.

Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.

There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole;
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.


Amen. Let it be so.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, May 28, 2020

A reading from the Book of Genesis, chapter 11:

[In ancient times] the whole earth had one language and the same words. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

And a reading from the Book of Acts, chapter 2:

[On the Day of Pentecost] all of [Jesus’ disciples] were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

God of all times and places, of all languages and cultures,

We confess that we are an arrogant people, a people more inclined to create divisions than to find connections.  We do damage to our relationship with you by building up our own self-centeredness, and we do damage to our relationship with others by refusing to see the divine spark of your life in those who look, sound, and act in ways that aren’t familiar to us.

As we hear of the death of a black man, George Lloyd, at the hands of white police in Minnesota, United States, fill us with the Spirit of Pentecost, so that we might cry out for justice with words that bring hope to those whose lives are put at risk because of the color of their skin and with words that reach the hearts and minds of those who cannot understand.

Help us to translate your love into places of racial discord, O God.

As we hear new of political turmoil and broken promises in Hong Kong, China, fill us with the Spirit of Pentecost, so that we might speak words that might lead away from violence and toward understanding.  Give us prophetic words to speak truth to those who abuse their power wherever they are found, and give us words of comfort for those who suffer at the hands of political oppressors.

Help us to translate your love into places of political discord, O God.

As same-sex weddings take place in Costa Rica for the first time, and we hear of religious groups lashing out in anger over this legal shift, fill us with the Spirit of Pentecost, so that we might speak words of true reconciliation, where the full humanity of one group of your children is not diminished and the deep theological concerns of another can be addressed – not with words of disdain and resentment, but with words of healing and transformation.

Help us to translate your love into places of religious discord, O God.

As our world continues to wrestle with the political, medical, economic, and cultural implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, fill us with the Spirit of Pentecost, so that we might speak to one another in ways that are respectful of the needs of those around us.  Remove from us our inward focus, so that we can see the ways we impact other people by the choices we make or refuse to make.  Surround us with people who are filled with the Spirit of Pentecost, so that they might speak words of wisdom to us as we navigate an ever-changing world.

Help us to translate your love into every corner of your beloved world, O God, so that the Spirit of Pentecost can transform our world from a Babel-like place of discord and suffering into the image of your kingdom.  Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, May 21, 2020

Even as the world turns, it seems the world has stood still in the shock of the pandemic. But we know this is not truly so, even as we know that you, Lord, hold all in your hand and love what you have created.

Science tells us that hurricanes and cyclones will continue to get more powerful – this week we are told that the ozone friendly chemicals we turned to thinking they would protect our atmosphere are themselves harmful.   Lord, help us get our responses right.

As Cyclone Amphan makes landfall (Wednesday afternoon) on the Sundabans off Bangladesh / India with an expectation that it will track across Bangladesh and India as far as Bhutan. In this supercyclone, the first in the Bay of Bengal for 20 years, people are already dying.  Lord help us to remember that science is not always the answer, but only provides a way for us to begin to understand the world you have made.

With shock, we pray for the residents who have been evacuated in the state of Michigan in the United States where dams have collapsed following days of heavy rain. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for areas near the Tittabawassee River after the Edenville and Sanford dams burst.

Even as heavy rain lashes these areas, so drought builds across parts of Europe and wildfires burn in Arizona, Florida, Britain. Lord, help us get our responses right. 

Lord, hear the cries of those in regions we don’t often hear about.  Local officials in Russia’s Dagestan region have described the situation there as a “catastrophe”, with reports of a rising death toll and serious shortages of equipment. Officially the region has recorded 36 deaths from the Coronavirus with more than 3,600 cases but health officials say hundreds more have died of pneumonia, including 40 medics.

We pray for the migrant workers of India, faced with walking many hundreds of miles home and dying of exhaustion on the way.  Without their labor, modern India would not be built. Lord, the worker is worthy of his hire ; you hear and know the cries of the desperate.  Lord, help us get our responses right. 

We pray for those whose Government’s  response to the Covid 19 crisis is less than compassionate; for the people of Brazil who are faced with “fake news – this is only a mild flu”; for the people of Britain and the  U.S. whose governments had dismantled pandemic procedures previously in place; for the residents of Sweden’s care homes who are not being hospitalized when taken ill.

There is good news; we give thanks.  On the remote Australian island, the Norfolk Island morepork owl, with an estimated population of only 45-50, has  had two owl chicks survive to fledgling, the first to do so in more than a decade.  White storks have hatched for the first time in over 6 centuries in England while, on world bee day, Monmouth in Wales has officially become the first ever “Bee Town”

We hear that scientists in Australia may have found a way to prevent coral bleaching – a killing event caused, in part, by ocean warming

Following the maternity ward attack on the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least 24 people, including newborns, mothers and nurses, we give thanks for the nursing mothers who have visited the hospital to feed the orphan babies.   Lord, help us get our responses right.

Lord of all and every situation we place all this, our environment, our selves in your hand, may we respond to you in love so that our responses are loving and right for your world.  Let it be so. Amen

[Read more…]

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, May 14, 2020

Dear God,

We take so much for granted. We want things to go a certain way, our way: Forgive us our narrow-mindedness. Help us to see beyond our small spot on the planet, beyond our place in this moment of time. Move us out of our heads and into our hearts. Shake us loose from what we cling to that is false. Help us to ask, “Does this nourish?” “Do I really need this?” “Is it your will?” Transform our understanding. Make us instruments of your peace.

In this time of sheltering in place, we understand even more the sacredness of gathering, our need to gather – to share the joy of birth, and to be close and give comfort when laying someone to rest. We are horrified at the disrespect and senseless acts that have occurred in Afghanistan. We mourn the attack on the maternity ward at Doctors Without Borders’ Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital in Kabul, where two newborns and 11 others  were killed. We grieve for the 24 people killed and 68 injured during an explosion at a funeral in Jalalabad province. We pray for the injured, the terrorized evacuees and witnesses, and the frontline personnel and families. We lay our hearts before you in a moment of silence… Lord, have mercy.

Protect the hospitals, public health workers, and humanitarian organizations that work with so little and do so much, especially in this Covid-19 pandemic. Amplify their efforts. Cause our leaders to awaken to right and swift action at the incredible loss of health care workers around the world to the virus. May they be moved to action by photos such as the one taken by Eraldo Peres on May 12, International Nurses Day, in Brasilia, Brazil. That photo, distributed by the Associated Press, pictures nurses at dusk protesting the deaths of their colleagues by lying down, arms outstretched on the earth, each holding a paper with the name of a colleague and a candle resting on their chest. Lord, in your compassion, strengthen us to do good and speak out at injustice.

Help us to hear your call in the cries of all your people. Help us to listen for your call in those who can hardly speak and who suffer silently.

  • Comfort the many who are isolated at home, quarantined in ICU’s, and families who do not get to say “good bye,” “I love you” one last time.
  • Sustain those who are depressed and soothe those who are so very anxious.

Oh God, you embrace all regret and deep remorse. You have room for everyone. What a mighty comfort. Help us likewise to show mercy and tender kindnesses, as we sort out loss upon loss around the world.

We groan at the wanton criminal neglect and malpractice of a South Korean multinational chemical factory and the layers of Indian board, state and central environmental authorities that led to the deaths of 12, including two children, and the poisoning over 1,000 as polystyrene gas entered the streets and homes of Visakhapatnam, India. We are reminded of the Bhopal, India, methyl isocyanate gas industrial disaster in 1984 at an insecticide plant that killed over 15,000, and pray for the contamination that still exists more than 35 years later, continuing to cause anguish, birth defects, and mental retardation.

We are angered at the easing of U.S. environmental laws to allow industrial pollution that steals air and water; snuffs out lives; and kills and destroys habitat. Help us to shine light on these grievous imbalances of power. Lay bare the acts of greed and corruption. Shed your light on the false values of expediency for the sake of profit. We offer again a moment of silence… Lord, have mercy. Give us purpose and clarity, as we regain a sense of urgency for the stewardship of our planet your creation.

We turn in gratitude for so many caring people and organizations, like the Washington Potato Growers Association (U.S.), which gave away over a million pounds of potatoes this week. Help us to understand generosity as a powerful and beautiful act, an act that acknowledges the other, the food insecure, the hungry, and those choosing between rent and groceries. As countries around the world take the risk of reopening businesses and other non-essential operations after Covid-19 shut-downs and stay-at-home orders, support the small business owners, the workers who are at risk, and the still unemployed. Give us patience and unity of purpose.

Help us in these turbulent times to understand the stability of our faith, hope and love: Faith with action, hope in the knowledge of your enduring love, and love itself that has conquered sin and death.

May we live inside the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans 8:37-39. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

World News in Prayer – Thursday, May 7, 2020

Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer,
we come to you in prayer today,
longing to see and sense your presence in these uncertain times.
We pray for your world,
as we seek to understand
and find a way to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Bring comfort to those who grieve,
remembering especially those in India who died
or are suffering due to the Styrene gas leak;
peace to those who are anxious,
caution to those who needlessly risk their health,
hope for all who are struggling
economically,
socially,
mentally,
physically,
and in any manner
because of this pandemic.

Lord of Lords, even as countries like
Peru, the US, and the UK
see a continued rise in cases,
other countries like
Germany, New Zealand and Australia
are lessening the restrictions on their residents.

Guide the leaders in government
and health officials
as they make exceedingly difficult decisions
in the days and weeks to come.

We give you thanks for the blessings we have seen,
for the rapid response of a lighting manufacturer
to create personal protective hoods for medical staff in Southampton, UK, 
and offering the design free of charge online;
for time with family,
for the opportunity to reevaluate our choices
and how we allocate the precious resource of time.

We pray for the farmers and people of Africa, Healer of the World,
as they are experiencing a second,
larger surge of locusts.
As the insects rise to plague levels,
they are causing widespread destruction in
Kenya,
Yemen,
Somalia,
Ethiopia,
and other nearby countries.

In the United States we pray for justice
following the killing of Ahmaud Arbery,
a 25 year-old black man out for a run in his neighborhood.
May this tragedy bring a swift end
to the racism and discrimination
which plagues us all in every country of your world.

Also in the United States,
this weekend is a celebration of mothers
and mothering figures in our lives;
many students are completing their studies
under strange circumstances.

Therefore, O God, we offer these prayers:
We come to you today, O God,
honoring the mothers in our lives:
those who give us life,
who nurture us, care for us, love us and guide us.

We pray, Holy One, for women who can not,
or choose not to have children of their own,
women for whom this remembrance sparks pain, grief, and loss.

Comforter of the hurting, we pray for children
who have not known the love of a mother,
the nurture of a loving parent,
​and women who have struggled to provide the care their children need.

God of the loving heart, we know
the care and love of mothering
extends beyond the boundaries of blood;
beyond the boundaries of biology;
beyond the boundaries of age;
beyond the boundaries of gender.

Your care and love, Eternal Giver of Life,
extends beyond the boundaries of space and time;
beyond the boundaries of creed and doctrine;
beyond all boundaries the human mind can imagine.

We join our hearts and minds in prayer,
Comfort of sufferers and Companion of the lonely,
seeking your peace and mercy,
your presence and comfort,
for those of us who grieve;
for the sick and hurting
and those who care for them;
for the poor and the oppressed,
and for the advocates who speak for them.

We celebrate with those who have recently or will soon graduate
from high-school, college, and all schools;
that they might feel you at work in their lives;
that they might stay safe
during this time of celebration;
that they might find joy in their future.

We pray for those for whom schooling is difficult,
who are working toward their GED or other exams;
who are struggling with trouble at home;
who must join the work-force too early just to survive.

Guide us, we pray, so that we may do your will,
today and every day.

Form us into a healthy, vital, growing followers of Jesus,
joined in purpose and vision;
united in our search for a deeper relationship with you,
Mighty God,
empowered by our salvation through Christ,
and guided by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, April 30, 2020

Dear Lord,

Sometimes we feel so alone and unprepared and exhausted.

Sometimes we feel forgotten and stepped upon.

Lord, remind us to breathe,
to look outward
and
to look inward.

Lord, remind us that in praying we are doing your will.

Help us to examine ourselves and to prepare for each day, knowing you are leading us, speaking to us and TOUCHING us with great love.

We are steeped in news, stories that make us weep and grow deeply sad, reminding us of so many vulnerabilities and so much human loss. Help us to set down our fears and burdens, to find sleep, to have healing dreams that connect us powerfully to you and all of your creation.

May we know what it means when our hearts are inscribed by the Holy Spirit. Guide us. Awaken us. Refresh us. Comfort us. May we come face to face with the unbidden stranger and understand this great wondrous mysterious love.

For those who work in fire and rescue, emergency rooms and intensive care units with the ventilators and monitors, the beeping and lights, before them a feverish human completely dependent on their ministrations, God we ask for your compassion. Sustain those who give of the mind, body and spirit to care, to heal and restore. We grieve as we hear of more deaths and even suicides as the stress and risk of being on the front line accumulates. Shelter these intelligent, deeply caring souls in your eternal time. We grieve with families, the newly diagnosed, those passed, and those struggling to heal and find a new normal. So many directions to look. God have mercy. We hold the dead in a moment of silence…

For the firefighters in the Ukraine, battling forest fires around Chernobyl. where radioactive ash and smoke is ascending and spreading beyond borders. Lord have mercy on us. Forgive us for these seemingly unending man-made calamities.

For those who donate their money and talents, volunteering in all manner of ways, in shelters, at food banks, tending neighbors, providing care to children of essential workers; for summer camps turned to respite sites and places to quarantine and receive a warm meal.   A little goes such a long way. A tear can be wiped or watched to fall. Help us to be present in those moments. Lord, have compassion for our desire to do everything we can. Love us when we feel we can’t do enough or figure things out fast enough.

Help us to remember those who are forgotten, the “not newsworthy,” the “last year’s news,” those in the “wrong” country. Break down our prejudices and hatred, shake apart our sinfulness and false righteousness that have nothing to do with compassion and good will.

Be with tribal peoples who are disproportionately suffering from this plague. School us in matching resources to need. Cause swift action to help, versus to deny and degrade. Be with the Dine’ (the Navajo peoples of the U.S. Southwest). Be with all tribes and aboriginal peoples as they bury their dead, seek testing and shelter in place.

May our masks speak of our love and care – to be a symbol of openheartedness. Teach our eyes to smile, our eyebrows to lift in welcome and show those funny awkward distant embraces as we wrap our arms around ourselves when we see another. Cause us to wave and yell hello from windows.

Oh Lord, we ask that you breath your Pentecostal fire in us–now–in this moment. Help us take up our “plowshares” to address the emergency in our most fragile nations. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reports this week that COVID-19 is eminent in over thirty so-called crisis countries unless we take swift action. Take us away from the podiums of falsehood. Direct us to the faces of those already suffering from war, displacement, those sheltered in dense refugee camps, those who lack water and sanitation, and those near famine. The IRC, with the Imperial College and the World Health Organization, have determined that if help is not forthcoming soon in those countries, 3 million deaths and 1 billion infections are likely.

We lay before you then, these our gravest fears. Burn through our dread and inaction. Create in us awareness and right action. We lift up our mighty resource of prayer to tend to the sorrows of Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Venezuela, of refugee camps in Greece, of the peoples in Afghanistan.

Remind us that a virus can cause suffering and
that we can remove suffering in so very many ways.

May we do your will and see your kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven.
We pray, we work, we give and we shelter.
In your name.

Amen.