O Holy One,
We think we are listening to you. We are really practicing listening to you. We have a long way to go — to do your will. To love ourselves. To love our neighbor. To Love You. We get distracted — so much is going on around us and worldwide. We have so many priorities. We are still in a pandemic, and a new pox virus has shown up.
Help us to settle.
Help us to set down our weapons, weapons of division, distrust, annihilation, spawning cluster bombs intended to kill and maim, assault rifles turned on our children, barbed wire fences to contain, a Brexit border policy that speaks “keep out!” Power? Force? Yes, for destruction, imprisonment, removal, and stinging death.
- Rebels reportedly seize the border city of Bunagana in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
- Rwanda says the DRC launched two rockets into its soil.
- The United Kingdom has been thwarted by a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights stopping them from removing political asylum seekers. Mostly adult men from Iran, Iraq, Albania, Vietnam, and Syria were to be moved to Rwanda. And in Rwanda, a hotel complex in Kigali is making ready to receive these people with UK funding. Public protest is widespread in the UK.
- Algeria dissolves a 2-decade friendship treaty with Spain over Western Sahara.
- In Mali, a junta creates a body in charge of suggesting a new Constitution
Come Spirit Come,
Protect us, comfort us, cleanse our physical wounds, calm our racing thoughts, hold us, hold us tightly, whisper to us as we feel this aching dread, a gray despair that clings in these times, time of staggering war, expanding famine, lengthening drought, calamity falling upon terrible news, upon more calamity. How long, how long? Challenge our leaders to step forward with conscience and do the right thing based on humane reasoning.
- Makeshift settlements for displaced people in Doolow, Somalia, in the southern Gedo region, are swelling with people seeking food and water, safety, and stability. As reported by the New York Times.
- Zimbabweans suffer rising prices bringing more financial burden.
O Still Small Voice Within,
In the shadows, seemingly forgotten, in detention centers under bright lights where none can really sleep, homeless crouched at a noisy street corner with traffic speeding by, and refugees from Ukraine on long journeys full of misery and exhaustion with uncertain destinations to borders and gates and walls – here are your people.
- Tunisia will have an expert drafting a new constitution leaving out religious references.
- The Democratic Republic of Congo has welcomed Belgium‘s King Philippe in what is a historic visit to the central African country that the Kings’ ancestor once ruled brutally as his personal fief. Africa News reports.
- Nigeria will see more than 2,300 delegates from the ruling party meeting in Abuja, where the All Progressives Congress (APC) is holding its primaries to choose its candidate for the 2023 presidential election.
Lord Jesus,
We call upon you.
With our kin-dom splintered and flailing, families survivors of gun violence with broken hearts weeping and hurting, whole communities feeling an irreparable loss and sense of hopelessness. Bring your mercy to them. Inspire our leaders to take action that is moral and ethical and suffused with wisdom.
Lord Jesus, in your name.
Amen
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