“We were somebody’s child. . .”
This prayer was given exactly four years ago, for Veteran’s Day, by Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, who serves West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio.
I choose it today because I feel it exemplifies the ideas in Monday’s post that “If there is a God who listens, then he or she is listening in the people gathered here.” Rev. Rolenz offers a timely message, four additional long years into the same war, and a reminder to all who hear it that we are, after all, in it together as a human family.
For consideration: What kind of public prayers speak most to you and your community? Is private prayer a meaningful practice for you?
Prayer for November 14, 2003
by Rev. Kathleen Rolenz
Let us join our hearts and minds together in the spirit of prayer:
O Holy One, that unites all who are estranged
and challenges all who preach division and exclusion,We see that unity so often in the eyes of a child, who sees neither race or creed in any eyes that look back, but only whether those are smiling are crying.
Suffer the little children to come to me, Jesus once said, for such is the Kingdom of God.Yet every one of us had the eyes of a child at one time, had that vision, had that open acceptance.
Before we put on the armor of our educations, and our social class,
before we went to school and to war,
before we went to church or mosque or synagogue, or temple,We were somebody’s child and we were loved.
So Holy One, help us to hold in our hearts ands our hands all those mother’s sons and daughters who are in harm’s way this day–
those who fight the wars of today and hope to lay eyes on those they love once more–
those who came home from the wars of yesterday and could not tell us what their eyes saw
those whose eyes were closed forever and whose family’s eyes were filled with tears this Veteran’s Day.
On all sides, in both trenches, despite the evil that is done, despite the high ideals that are proclaimed, our faith is that all these children deserve to be called the Children of God.
We pause in silent affirmation of that faith:
Amen.
Source: “Prayer for November 14, 2003″ by Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, serving West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio, via Worship Web.
Tags: community, hope, Kathleen Rolenz, love, prayer, war
