God of Love and Justice, I do not pray for peace. I pray for rage, rage at the ways of evil and injustice, rage that burns and transfigures this sick world. I do not pray for mercy, but wrath upon us who have power to speak and do not. I do not pray for comfort, but for disturbance that will not let us rest or wait, but make us work and witness until we are done. I do not pray for safety but fear, fear for the souls of all of us who shelter ourselves behind violence, whose prayer shawls are soaked with the tears of the oppressed. I do not pray that you save us from our evil. Let it burn in our hands until we renounce it. Let us who have exiled ourselves suffer our loneliness until we re-unite with those we have dismissed. Let us stand outside the gates of paradise until we enter the lives of those who suffer. O God, you are today no Good Shepherd but the Crucified Prisoner, God of love and Justice, for the sake of love and justice, disturb us.
____________________ Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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