World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for China

Weather and disaster recur in the prayers for China: typhoons, floods, dust storms and record heat, as well as building collapses. Human rights, the treatment of Uyghur Muslims, protest in Hong Kong, trade tension and the pandemic years are also named, alongside thanks for panda sanctuaries and tree planting.

Crack Our Hearts Open: Prayers for Brazil’s Pandemic, a Qom Family in Argentina, and New Delhi (June 11, 2020)

Christ, Jesus our friend and companion in the streets, in police stations, on curbsides, at take out restaurants, in hospital waiting rooms, in public health offices that are conducting contact tracing phone calls, in hallways of governments, and with those who listen to testimony. You, Lord, who wait for us to open the door, to […]

Is There No Balm in Gilead: Prayers After George Floyd, for Cyclone Nisarga and a Grieving World (June 4, 2020)

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? So why has the healing of my dear people not come about?  ~ Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead, Holy God? For we, your people, desperately need a balm, a healing, a sense that the desperate pain we are feeling will come to […]

From Babel to Pentecost: A Prayer for Places of Racial, Political, and Religious Discord (May 28, 2020)

A reading from the Book of Genesis, chapter 11: [In ancient times] the whole earth had one language and the same words. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad […]

Peace Be With You: A Prayer for a World Behind Locked Doors During the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 16, 2020)

A reading from the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 19 through 29, in the New Revised Standard Version: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the authorities, Jesus came and stood among […]

Hope Will Not Be Canceled: How Are We to Pray in a Time of Pandemic (March 25, 2020)

Conversations will not be cancelled. Relationships will not be cancelled. Love will not be cancelled. Songs will not be cancelled. Reading will not be cancelled. Self-care will not be cancelled. Hope will not be cancelled. * Beloved, how are we to pray in these times of pandemic, when country after country imposes stringent stay-at-home orders? […]

Like Grasses Showing Tender Faces: A Prayer as the Pandemic Circles the Globe (March 12, 2020)

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.   Black Elk, (1863-1950) Oh God, we read these words […]

A Rock in a Weary Land: A Lenten Prayer for Hope, Faith, and Love (February 27, 2020)

Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land; My Jesus is a rock in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. African American spiritual God of forgiveness and mercy, God of grace and truth, we enter this season of Lent with both gratitude and trepidation. Evidence […]

One Ecosystem: Prayers for a Calving Antarctic Glacier, Locust Swarms, and Syria’s Displaced (February 13, 2020)

Ah, Lord God, our creator, our father.   The world is changing.  Again. It’s difficult to realize, as I write when the sky is wall to wall blue and a plane suddenly adds a tracery of white, that that interesting line is part of what is changing our world. As another huge iceberg calves from […]

Arise, Shine: Looking for Light in Wuhan, Auschwitz, and Australia’s Bushfires (January 30, 2020)

Arise, shine, for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth And thick darkness is over the peoples, But the Lord rises upon you And his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your dawn. Isaiah […]