Tag: prayer

An Alien Prayer

Denise Krebs1 Comment

Oh, God,

Help these people. America is full of emotion and fire right now.

Emotions of despair, outrage, hurt, disappointment, shame, sorrow, hate, disgust, fear, hopelessness, sadness. So many emotions, but especially overwhelming sadness and anger.

Fire. Fire of anger. Fire of cleansing. Fire of Jesus in the temple. Fire. It burns up the old and lays down a bed of ash for a fresh start. This country needs a fresh start. Help them sustain their anger as the fires go out.

In all my travels, God, I have never visited a world at a time when there was so much focused energy on the same theme. They have a collective consciousness, but why so many different beliefs about the white supremacist foundation of their country? How can that be? It seems pretty simple to someone who has studied history. These people can’t seem to see clearly the obscene inequality that is staring them in the epidermis.

Who has bewitched them? Who wrote their history books? Does white skin affect reason? America needs some serious table upturning, Jesus.

Give joy to the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness. Give anticipated joy to sustain them in their sadness and to keep up the fight. May justice barrel through this land.

Amen

Thank you to Jon Batiste for today’s prompt. His new song today is “Prayer” composed in collaboration with Cory Wong. The prompt was to write a prayer as if we were an alien visitor from another galaxy coming to America for the first time. Today is Monday, Day 97 in Bahrain, day 62 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

O, God, Save Us

Denise Krebs2 Comments

I have a FitBit, and right now I am on a bit of a 10,000-step-a-day streak. I also like to keep moving for at least 30 minutes each day. Sometimes I keep going while my husband runs an errand. Today I kept walking while he went into the Viva store to take care of a mobile phone issue.

Last week, when I needed a few more minutes to hit my goal, my hubby stopped at the market to buy some cashews. I went in, but I kept moving, moving around the store. He told me I was like a cat underfoot, going here and there, needing herding.

Tonight we walked through the dark alleyways and narrow streets of Manama, where I am never afraid. It’s dusty and run-down and crowded with cars parked on the sidewalks and people going every which way. Cars squeeze through places you would never believe they’d fit. (I spent almost a whole lifetime thinking I needed more room to drive than I really do.)

I took a walk with my husband tonight, after we heard about the tragedy in Las Vegas. I am weeping that my own country seems so unsafe and broken nowadays. O, God, save us, I pray.

Evening walk in the souk. #bahrainwtc #10000steppartyonmywrist

A post shared by Denise Krebs (@mrsdkrebs) on

Prayer on 9/11

Denise Krebs5 Comments

When the World Spins Crazy
By Walter Brueggemann

When the world spins crazy,
spins wild and out of control
spins toward rage and hate and violence,
spins beyond our wisdom and nearly beyond our faith,
When the world spins in chaos as it does now among us…

We are glad for sobering roots that provide ballast in the storm.
So we thank you for our rootage in communities of faith,
for our many fathers and mothers who have believed and trusted as firm witnesses to us,
for their many stories of wonder, awe, and healing.

We are glad this night in this company
for the rootage of the text,
for the daring testimony,
for its deep commands,
for its exuberant tales.
Because we know that as we probe deep into this text…
clear to its bottom,
we will find you hiding there,
we will find you showing yourself there,
speaking as you do,
governing,
healing,
judging.

And when we meet you hiddenly,
we find the spin not so unnerving,
because from you the world again has a chance
for life and sense and wholeness.
We pray midst the spinning, not yet unnerved,
but waiting and watching and listening,
for you are the truth that contains all our spin. Amen.

From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Prayed at the Lay School of the Pentateuch on September 17, 2001.

And today, like Walter Brueggemann did ten years ago, most of us have reflected on 9/11. Among other things, I read two interesting articles comparing the ten-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor with our commemoration of today. One post was by Nate Everett and one was an L.A. Times editorial by Jon Wiener.

It seems “the day which would live in infamy” was fairly bypassed on December 7, 1951. America was shivering into the Cold War, fighting Korea, allying with Japan, and didn’t have the time or the resolve to remember too much about Pearl Harbor.

What is different today? We certainly have taken the time and resolve to remember.

Today the memorial service in New York was somber, meaningful, and beautiful. The waterfalls–largest man-made waterfalls in North America–fall into emptiness, yet somehow fill the void. Our memories have remained strong.

My students remembered 9/11 this year. However, this is the first year my students don’t really remember. They were just two or three or four on September 11, 2001. They have absorbed the ethos of 9/11 from their older siblings and parents. Shiann is a good example. She is a serious student of 9/11, an event that continues to mark her generation as it did her all-grown-up siblings before her. This weekend Shiann wrote two posts about it–here and here.

We lost many things after 9/11. I want to remember, but I don’t want important things to be lost forever.
Did we lose…
…hope?
…the resolve to make sense of spinning?
…the power to forgive?
…the ability to make allies of our enemies?

I pray we have not lost these.

Each candle across the gym represented 60 people who lost their lives on 9/11.