Well may the world go,
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I’m far away.
— Pete Seeger (c. 1973)
For months now, this has been my wake-up song, a conscious choice to spend my first moments of each day letting go of all I can’t control, of all I cannot or dare not comprehend. Entrusting the whole world into God’s hands.
But today when I woke, it was clear that the world was not going well at all. More drive-by shootings in my own city. The news of a young white man shooting down nine black people, described as well-respected mentors, during a prayer circle at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Allegations by UNICEF that at least 129 children were killed, with boys castrated and girls raped, during a government offensive against rebels last month in South Sudan.
Earlier in the week, bombs found at an abandoned stronghold of Boko Haram Islamists exploded, killing at least 13 people and injuring 45 others in northeast Nigeria. The United Nations reported that in 2014, nearly 60 million people were displaced by war, conflict or persecution – the biggest global refugee population since the year World War II ended. The U.N. World Food Programme is facing a shortfall in donor funding, and will have to cut food rations – by a third! – for half a million mainly Somali and South Sudanese refugees living in camps in northern Kenya.
North Korea has been hit by what it describes as its worst drought in a century, which is expected to increase chronic food shortages in a country where almost a third of children under five are stunted because of poor nutrition. Several provinces in Pakistan are running out of ground water, with no system in place to replenish it. Much of Zimbabwe has had insufficient rain to support crops. International aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that Yemen’s health care system is on the verge of collapse, while 80% of the population urgently need aid.
No, the world isn’t going well at all.
And tonight, I have no pretty words of prayer, only undiluted anguish.
And anger.
God, we, your beloved children, still have not learned how to identify and stop those who choose to brutalize and denigrate and kill others, before untold damage is done.
Lord, hear our prayer.
We still all too often act as if lamenting violence is a competitive sport, with accusations that this group doesn’t care enough about the deaths in that group, or that group doesn’t care enough about the root causes of the hunger or poverty or powerlessness or oppression in this group.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Millennia after you, God, started trying to teach us that you are God of all, we still fall into thinking that the people near us, or like us, matter more. That our drought is more pressing than their drought. That the names of our dead need to be read out across the land, while the names of those who died in other lands remain unspoken here.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Well may the world go,
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I’m far away.
Lord, instill in us your heart, your very own heart.
Lord, instill in us your love, that we – all of us – may join with you in making it so.
These prayers fill me each day. I forget my own insignificant worries and focus on praying for the world. I want to share this resource on Facebook. I hope I have.
thank you for putting words to my thoughts and giving them passage to Heaven.