Pastoral Prayer…For Those In Harm’s Way
By the Rev. William G. Sinkford, 3/20/03
President, Unitarian Universalist Association
We encourage your congregation to incorporate this prayer into its
Sunday worship service, drawing strength from the fact that Unitarian
Universalists all over the world will be united as a people during worship.
Please enter the space of silence and honesty, which is known by many
names.
Let us open our hearts in prayer.
On this day, as US bombs are falling on Baghdad, we pray for many people,
many things. Our concerns are for the safety of the American citizen soldiers
who stand in harm’s way. Though there is disagreement about the
wisdom of this war, there is no disagreement about our support for the
women and men who must engage in it. Let us not confuse our feelings about
those who made the decision for war with our steadfast support for those
who are called to make war itself. So let us pray as one people for our
soldiers.
We pray, too, for the families of those in uniform. Those loved ones
wait and pray most earnestly for their safe return. Our thoughts are with
the children, for whom no war could be understood to matter more than
a mother or father’s life. Let our love and support be with them
as well.
We pray also for the people of Iraq, especially the innocent children,
who will be harmed by this war, and for all the people of Iraq, whose
lives will be disrupted and changed by our actions. May this war, when
the hostilities end, help them find greater freedom and happiness, and
not more suffering and loss.
And we pray for our world, a world in need of paths to peace. We pray
for a world in which we might learn that differences of faith, of race,
of nation, need not separate us. We pray that this world, which may be
further divided by this war, can become one where there is less hatred
and more understanding.
This war has put us all in harm’s way, and we all stand, together
now, on fragile ground in this time of unrest. There is only one destiny
on this small blue planet, and there are no other hands but ours. So let
us, as one people, pray, finally, for the courage and the wisdom to find
a path that leads to both peace and justice.
May it be so.
Amen
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