Praying the News, Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

All this time in human history, God of All Peace, and we still have not learned the nature of violence.  How is that?  Is it so seductive?  Does the blood, which drips off the fangs of those who devour, smell so lovely that we lose ourselves in lusting after it?  What is it that makes us believe we can now bring peace with the violence we traffic?  Why do we trust those pushers?  Are we just caught in the addiction?  Blind to the weapons used against us which bear our names?  We have often used hate or fear to describe the polar opposite of love.  But maybe it is violence, Tender One?  Maybe it is violence.  And if violence is the polar opposite of love, then where do we go from here?  How do we courageously confront the violence without it becoming a part of our bloodstream?  Give me the strength to stay on the wagon.  Remind me that everyday I must enter a struggle to remain in recovery.  Do not let me feed the Beast.  In the name of the Prince of Peace.  Amen.

Praying the News, Thursday, October 2, 2014

Animado

Rise up, O God!  Rise up in your people.  Let the protests in Hong Kong bring democracy and freedom and not be co-opted by some new free trade initiative.  Let freedom mean free.  Rise up.  Rise up, O God!  Rise up in your people.  Let the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, transform hearts and transform systems and structures of injustice.  Do not let them be co-opted by some piecemeal appeal to white privilege.  Rise up, O God!  Rise up in your people.  Let the protests in Colorado echo in such a way that we tell our stories about movements and communities and resistance so that they may be lived out once more.  Do not let patrimonial capitalism steal our stories.  Rise up.  Rise up, O God!  Let these protests against violence across the world become a gospel which finally gets out to the world.  Do not let the corporate media once again ignore and snuff out the movement of your people.  Rise up in me today.  Rise up in our community tomorrow.  Rise up in the world the next day.   Rise up!  Amen.

Praying the News, Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Blind Patriotism

Time after time we go for it hook, line, and sinker.  They talk about the violence against women.  They talk about their barbarism.  They imply that we are somehow different.  (And we aren't.)  How do I get the word out, Faithful One?  How do I put in front of people our contemptible ways in some form that people understand?  Is it just my history with Latin America that helps me to understand how to be jaded?  I find myself furious with rage that we just keep letting this happen.  Off to war again.  The bombing commences and already reports of civilian deaths come streaming in.  We talk about all the violence in video games as what fosters it in our children while our country proceeds in a perpetual state of war.  Strengthen the peacemakers.  Make me one.  Set my jaw square with courage so this killing ends.  Please.  No more bloodshed.  Please.  Amen.

Praying the News, Monday, September 15, 2014

Everything is a nail

What is this, Creator of the Universe, that we continue to think that our only answer is violence?  We will bomb and obliterate.  We will destroy and humiliate.  It's like someone fed us a bunch of steroids as a teenage boy.  We have no boundaries.  There is no limit to our violent reach.  Measure us.  Draw us in with words of peace.  Help us to hammer out something different than tragedy and warfare.  In Christ's name.  Amen.

Praying the News, Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Save Us from the Arrogance of Violence

What sickness is this in us, Tender One, that we believe we will be saved by violence?

 More strikes in Syria and Iraq, arms to particular Syrian rebels, military trappings sent to our law enforcement officials, and another execution in Missouri and Texas . . . Holy hell, Tender One, what are we doing?  How do we do anything different when it seems to be so much a part of us?  I grow weary of thinking about how much confrontation it will require to wean us from these madness.  We are addicted.  We are jazzed by it all.  Swords are being beaten into automatic weapons.  Police cars are being exchanged for tanks.  And death serums are kept secret because people outside of our country don't want to participate in our never-ending march to war and violence.  Humble us so that more lives are not lost.  Exchange stone hearts for tender, flesh hearts.  Do not deal with us as we have dealt with others.  Amen.  

Praying the News, August 25, 2014

Genocide Begins with the Silence of the World

News comes that the first Israeli child was killed in this seven-week conflict.  Five hundred Palestinian children have been killed at the same time.  500!  Why does this continue, God of All Justice?  Where are you?  Why do you sit idly by and pretend that this about being "chosen" and "terrorist?"  Why are some deaths so precious and others so trivial?  Transform the hard-hearted.  Break open the heart of Prime Minister Netanyahu that he may hear the cries of children.  Should he not know?  Should he not mine the remembrance of his people to be different?  Hagar is weeping for her children and she will not be silenced.  What makes us all so callous to such suffering and death?  Where do we begin?  Amen.

Praying the News, August 21, 2014

Always Killing the Prophets

I realize now why I have been telling every courageous young person to get into journalism.  They may offer our last, best chance--against climate change, militarism, racism, and predatory capitalism.  So don't let me get away with passing along the truth-telling responsibility to another generation.

We talk about the prophetic Word and pretend that it is preached from your pulpits.  But James Foley's death should make clear . . .  In a world where to share the truth of what is going on is met with threats, violence, and death, real journalists are our prophets.  I grieve for James Foley's family.  If salvation is about opening up a space, then let us open up a broad and good space for those journalists who tell the truth about the vanguards of violence, the habitual purveyors of death, the authoritarian bullies.  Do not let us be carried away by the shifty, snake-oil salesmen, the news anchors disguised as cheerleaders.  You are wild and gritty by nature.  Make us free and tough in our search for the truth.  

Make me free and tough . . . and no matter what the cost, a truth-teller.  And I pray that Jesus was wrong.  Do not let Jerusalem kill any more of her prophets.  Amen.