This Week's Prayer

Ground of Being and of Truth,
Our lives are new every morning.
Each day we are given opportunities to love life and to love the people, the life around us, and this good Earth.
As we begin a new year, we take a moment to rededicate ourselves to service, to rededicate our gifts and talents towards creating a world of justice and peace.

We rededicate ourselves to compassion.
May we have courage when we find ourselves encountering pain and suffering in others and in ourselves.
May we be free of judgment and self-righteousness.
May we bring humility to all we do.

We rededicate ourselves to reconciliation.
Let us ask for forgiveness of those we have hurt.
Let us open our hearts to possible paths toward forgiveness of those who have hurt us.
Where there is division between individuals, races, or tribes, let us be bearers of light and understanding.

We rededicate ourselves to hope.
When we hear of wars that seem unending and see scars of conflict that run to the bone, or natural disasters, or calamities that we ourselves have made, may we find the strength to continue to seek the way of understanding and love.

We rededicate ourselves to justice.
Let us resist unfair and unequal laws and treatment.
Let us expose systems that benefit those who have much and penalize those who have little.
Let us have the wisdom to hold our leaders accountable for their actions.

We rededicate ourselves to peace.
May we respond to hatred with love, to anger with kindness.
May we be filled with inner peace that spreads peace wherever we go.
May our witness and our actions bring peace to fill the whole world.

We rededicate ourselves to faith – the opening of our hearts to the unknown and the commitment to whatever lifts us from material or social status concerns.

So may it be.