Pastoral Prayer, One Year Later
adapted from the Rev. William G. Sinkford President, Unitarian Universalist
Association
The Rev. Kendyl Gibbons has adapted Rev. Sinkford's
prayer for a Humanist context. It may be used as a responsive reading
or meditation.
We encourage your congregation to incorporate the following into its
ingathering Sunday worship service, drawing strength from the fact that
Unitarian Universalists all over the world will be united as a people
at this time.
Please enter the space of silence and honesty, which is known by many
names, and let us open our hearts to the gracious spirit of creation.
A new church year begins. Life goes on.
Babies are born and we dedicate ourselves to them. People die and we
memorialize their lives, laughing and crying as we grieve our loss.
Marriages and partnerships are formed and blessed. Triumphs and tragedies
enter our sanctuaries with us as we gather.
Life goes on. And our ministry together tries to hold it all: the joys
and the sorrows, the pleasure and the pain, the fullness and the emptiness.
All enter here with us. Our coming together bears witness to the power
of love, and the possibility of community.
What should we seek here; to what should we dedicate ourselves now?
Twelve months ago, our illusions of security, our sense of safety were
shattered. How many times have we heard and said: "Since September
11th…," as if by saying those words, we could somehow control
the reality of grief, loss, anger and fear; the reality that there are
those in our increasingly divided world who see us differently from
the way we see ourselves. We say those words- "since September
11th"- as if we could gain dominion over their meaning. Yet as
we have grieved and feared, raged and anguished through this last year,
life has gone on.
What should our aspirations be, then, one year later?
Should we still hope for peace?
Peace in our lives and peace in our world? Should we look for an end
to grief, freedom from fear, an end to violence? But is it not our own
hands that must make it so?
Yes; despite our failures to achieve peace in our own hearts, still
we hope for peace. We wish an end to grief for those who lost loved
ones on September 11th and since September 11th, for those working in
rescue and recovery efforts and for those members of our nation's armed
services who stand in harm's way. And we hold in our hearts also those,
no less bereft, who have endured losses unrelated to September 11th
that have been overshadowed by that communal tragedy.
Should we look for safety?
A sense of security, confidence, trust that the universe welcomes our
presence and offers a home for our spirit? But at whose expense are
we willing to seek safety for ourselves?
Yes, we want safety, but we also lift up the reality of those profiled,
jailed and deported since September 11th, and ask forgiveness from those
whose safety has been sacrificed in our attempt to guarantee our own.
Should we strive for wholeness?
A world in which Muslim and Jew can live together, a world in which
gay and straight, men and women, Black and white and brown and red and
yellow encounter one another not in fear but in thanks? But can we ourselves-do
we-live with such integrity?
Yes, we try to grow toward wholeness, in our world and in our own lives.
Should we seek a renewed loyalty to our nation?
Can we learn to define our national interest in a way that acknowledges
we share a single destiny with all our neighbors on this small blue
planet? Can our policies recognize at what cost in human suffering American
privilege has been purchased?
Yes, we remember and renew the ideals of our nation.
We hunger for all these things. And we seek the gracious spirit of
courage and endurance for ourselves. It is so hard to trust. Everywhere
we look, reality contradicts our yearning to hope. It seems that we
must walk alone, even through the valley of the shadow of death. We
search our hearts for the willingness to walk with one another, for
we know we will need to walk together if we are ever to make justice
and peace real.
For there are no hands on earth but ours. And our hands seem so few
and our abilities so small in the face of such great need for healing.
There are no hands on earth but ours. So we come together to find again
the strength to try. We know how real the brokenness of this world is,
but we will not give brokenness the last word.
So we lift up our hope for an end to grief, for peace, and safety.
We cherish our nation, even as we would hold it accountable. And we
seek the still center within ourselves, that we might feel the spirit
of life and the stirrings of compassion. Let us resist both fear and
complacency. Let us be determined to give life the shape of justice.
Let us remember that we can collude with love. Let us live as if wholeness
can happen, and by our living help to make it so.
Amen.
