O, Lord, call us, awaken us,
awaken us as you called your prophets to speak truth,
your truth to this errant world.
Amos, a shepherd and arborist, a pruner of trees, and a prophet speaking to power.
Hear his words as a season of destruction and genocide flows around us.
You trample on the heads of the ordinary people, and push the poor out of your path.
Amos 2:7
Sudan’s Darfur region, the last free city, El Fasher, is now ringed and besieged by paramilitary forces backed by the United Arab Emirates. The civil war between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is decades old, remembered and forgotten, and now with fresh atrocities recounted in the news. We weep as we hear how families are running through fields to escape, hundreds casually executed. Humanitarian agencies from Norway are receiving the people with accounts of terror, death and death by starvation. They speak once again of genocide. The RSF horses and camels have been exchanged for pickups, heavy artillery and drones. Lord have Mercy! The heart of war is this consuming fiery furnace of lawlessness and wrath. Help us to choose life, not killing and death. Bring nations together to stop the armament that fuels the destruction of civilization, descending into oblivion.
The health and wealth and vitality that comes with food security is under siege by the USA federal administration. Meals are skipped for rent, for utilities, for auto payments. Free school breakfast and lunch programs don’t cover supper time and weekends. Harvest season in the northern hemisphere is upon us and yet we experience empty cupboards, food pantry lines, pushback on the calls for release of funds for emergency food relief. We are perplexed and angered and aggrieved that this manufactured crisis creates suffering. Hunger is suffering. Bring compassion and reason, shed your grace on a forlorn time that seems filled with despair. May this compassion and reason be a counterweight to ill will. This is the compassion of Christ.
News on the war in Ukraine tells us of the fatigue of soldiering, satellite drones monitoring the advancement of troops from Russia now infiltrating Pokrovsk, Ukraine and the struggle to recruit for a long war. We read this, as the USA is withdrawing troops from Europe. And as hurricane Melissa’s damage is being assessed even when roads are impassable in Jamaica we hear of a troop build-up by the US around Venezuela, an aircraft carrier even. Can this be happening? 8 million have left the country during its continued repression and now the threat of war to a sovereign nation.
We hear of the children of Gaza, Palestine, succumbing to shrapnel wounds from unexploded ordinances left by the Israel Defense Forces. Children gathering wood for the coming cold, shelters exposed with shabby tarps, no water and the sounds of war continue. Amos speaks your words in this age. Lord, your thunderous voice is louder than war, swifter than bullets, rings through the centuries and witnesses our sinning – may we turn to your bright love. May we look toward your warmth and light and share the Resurrection news.
This feels like an unholy time, a terrible time where want and need are divorced from justice and right action by nations. A time when care in our communities seems like such a heavy lift, yet each day we seek to remain steadfast and support one another. Hear our voices, whistles blowing, soft prayers and singing in the streets.
Amos 5:24 speaks to the hierarchy of power and disregard.
No more strumming on your harps...
Help us to see our addictions, false idols of gold that do not last but lure, reflecting vanity. Wake us up to your merciful ways, your path that mixes and mingles peoples in good ways, all of us immigrants across this earth. Lead us in your prayerful ways, sharing our abundant bread and fish. Help us to surrender to your will. Oh, this is so difficult. The communion bread that was brought by Chicago, USA bishops to the detention center refused by a nation that calls itself united and under God. Kyrie Eleison! Cristo Eleison!
The news will continue to arrive and we pray for the journalists, camera crews, the wiring of news, the news that doesn’t make the headlines or back page, legacy news agencies that cull and control what is shared, — O, Lord may your truth prevail. Be the voice of the weak, the young, our elders, those silenced in detention centers and prisons around the world — may it make its way to us.
Make us bold for you.
Give us moral courage to speak out.
Like the news that spills forth we end this prayer with Amos words from 5:24:
Just let justice flow like water, And integrity like an unfailing stream.
Amen.
Leave a Reply