Prayers for the United States

Prayers naming the United States have followed storms, tornadoes, wildfires and floods across many states, along with elections and political tension, gun violence, and questions of migration and race. Health, mental health and the well-being of ordinary households appear often, as do thanksgivings for its landscapes and wild places.

We Cannot Go Back to Normal: A Prayer on Inequality, Hong Kong, and Rising Hate Crimes (July 30, 2020)

I never anticipated that now, in the midst of an abundant summer following a beautiful spring, we would still be living out a winter spirituality. But the Covid-19 Pandemic has brought this upon us. But…We’re All in This Together, Right?….except…. Lowering of pollution that first month—the air so crisp and clear and breathable. Everything stood […]

Your Glory Fills the Skies: Prayers for Yemen, Locust Swarms, and Monsoon Floods (July 23, 2020)

Ever-creating God, Your glory fills the skies, from the transient sparkle of the fleeting meteor to the unexpected spectacle of Comet Neowise; your glory fills the earth from mountain height to ocean depth. We praise you. As difficult as it is to find words to express how much your glory thrills and excites us it […]

Give Grace to Your Servants: A Prayer of Grief for a World Apart (July 16, 2020)

This week’s prayer contains excerpts from The [Episcopal] Book of Common Prayer. Lord God, today we gather in Your name, though most of us not in the indoor spaces that have come to symbolize gathering spaces for those seeking truth, justice, and faith. Many of us struggle to feel the sacred or even simple connection […]

Kitten-Shaped Prayers: Ethiopia’s Oromo Protests, Hong Kong’s Security Law, and a Myanmar Landslide (July 2, 2020)

The World in Prayer team member who wrote this week’s prayers has spent the past 6 weeks catching, taming, and finding homes for a litter of feral kittens. It has, she says, definitely affected how she understands God, and how she prays for the world. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she writes, “if these prayers […]

How Long, O Lord: Prayers for the Pandemic, a Mexico Earthquake, and Arizona Wildfires (June 25, 2020)

(Many thanks to Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor/author, Nadia Bolz-Weber, for some of the prayer petitions.) God who is called by many names, God of this earth and all its peoples, today we are crying out, how long, O Lord? How long until we can touch our parents and beloved elders? (even as we thank you for […]

Jesus, Light of the World: A Prayer Against Racism and Injustice, from London to Navajo Nation (June 18, 2020)

What does the Lord ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.~ Micah 6 : 8 “My thoughts are not like your thoughts. And your ways are not like my ways,” announces the Lord. “The heavens are higher than the earth. And my ways are higher than your […]

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 […]

Help Us Get Our Responses Right: Cyclone Amphan, Michigan’s Dams, and Kabul (May 21, 2020)

Even as the world turns, it seems the world has stood still in the shock of the pandemic. But we know this is not truly so, even as we know that you, Lord, hold all in your hand and love what you have created. Science tells us that hurricanes and cyclones will continue to get […]

More Than Conquerors: A Prayer After the Kabul Maternity Ward Attack and the Visakhapatnam Gas Leak (May 14, 2020)

Dear God, We take so much for granted. We want things to go a certain way, our way: Forgive us our narrow-mindedness. Help us to see beyond our small spot on the planet, beyond our place in this moment of time. Move us out of our heads and into our hearts. Shake us loose from […]