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Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”
–Genesis 4:9-10
We center ourselves in prayer.
O Lord, help us to take in this ancient conversation, this killing, the cries from the earth that continue thousands of years later into this week of news.
The news swirls around us. You tell us not to kill. Lying cascades into deceit. We are in a fallen world, a world where so many are on their knees, broken, lost in the dark, aching and thirsty. To discern justice and righteousness in these times feels impossible. Spirits low, hearts dragged down, enmeshed in news that is anxiety-producing. It feels like a never-ending sorrow. We lift up the young and fragile, the innocent that live in calamity made by rulers of nations. Lord, have mercy.
We are grateful to Jordan as the nation receives 2,000 children from Palestine (Gaza) – children suffering from cancer and trauma of war. Shepherd them, O God. We pray for a continued cease-fire in Gaza, the arrival and equitable distribution of humanitarian aid and appropriate policing to prevent foodstuffs from sometimes making their way into the Black Market.
Captive in detention centers, separated from family, often kept in deplorable conditions without access to attorneys – according to the Global Detention Project, that’s the condition of tens of thousands of men, women, and children across the world who are locked up because they are asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, refugees, trafficking victims, torture survivors, stateless persons, and others.
- The U.S. has frozen resettlement admissions for already-accepted refugees from Afghanistan. Many already had their plane tickets.
- A dispatch from Amnesty International reports that a woman from Haiti waited six months for an appointment just to start the asylum process into the U.S., only to have it cancelled on the 20th of January. She is just one of many with cancelled appointments since the new U.S. administration took office in January. The U.S. government has also disabled the app that asylum seekers were required to use to make those appointments, leaving over 30,000 people awaiting such appointments stranded at the Mexican border and in detention camps, unsafe in their homeland and now stuck and vulnerable to policies that create more suffering, violence and chaos.
- Unaccompanied children at the U.S. and Mexico border are at extreme risk and now unable to reunite with their family or sponsors, with only a limited number of legal and social service agencies trying to comfort and assist them.
- A January report from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture reveals deplorable conditions and violations of human rights in Italy’s immigrant detention centers, and raises concerns regarding Italy’s detention deal with Albania.
- Despite the spiralling war in nearby Sudan—where reports of massacres and widespread starvation have grabbed global attention—Egypt appears on the verge of adopting a new law that will threaten access to protection for those fleeing the conflict. The law will also allow for arbitrary detention based on migration status and without full consideration of each individual’s asylum needs.
- The most recent reports on Croatia’s treatment of migrants and asylum seekers along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina reveal systematic destruction of migrants’ belongings, including cell phones and identity papers.
Country after country, government after government, pushing back against those in desperate need. Lord show us the path of justice. Open our hearts to policies that can make sense of the needs of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. We seek unity of purpose and compassion.
Gandhi said:
“I am praying for the light that will dispel the darkness, let those who have a living faith in non-violence, join me in the prayer.”
May it be so in our hearts.
May it be so with our hands.
Give our minds clarity.
In this moment we breathe in the light,
Witness your peace among us.
Help us to examine what my brother’s keeper means in our daily lives.
May we hold each other in safe embrace.
May a living faith of non-violence move over this splintered world.
Amen.
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