Note: Words in italics are from Ps 8 (NRSV)
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
As cosmologists view a “ghost galaxy” hidden in sight…
You have set your glory above the heavens.
As the UN tries to recruit more women to be Blue Helmets peacekeepers, Mali has the grim distinction of being the deadliest active peacekeeping deployment in the world…
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
As astronomers announce the discovery of a planet around our nearest neighbor star…
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
As a U.S. federal judge blocks an order issued by President Trump to deny the possibility of asylum to migrants crossing the southern border illegally…
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
As environmentalists battle to protect the only place in the world where orangutans, rhinos, elephants and tigers still co-exist in the wild (the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia) from destruction by companies producing palm oil…
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
As spurious health claims about diseases carried on clothing are used against the providers of humanitarian aid in Mediterranean Sea…
Lord, what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
As children search for food in the rubbish of the streets of Yemen; while marine life dies as it engulfs plastic instead of food; as wildfires still smolder; as a volcano erupts in Guatemala; as Vietnam floods; as El Nino triggers severe weather in South America…
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
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