This Week's Prayer

Source of healing and wholeness we call by many names:

The rich and the poor have this in common: on this pale blue dot, we are all passing wisps of bone and hope. Let us not lose an instant of this brief chance to be present.

Let the yearning of our heart be spoken, made conscious, and guide our actions.

We want the compassion to comfort the afflicted. We want the courage to afflict the comfortable. Everyone we meet is both: afflicted by something that bothers them and complacent about something about which they could be bothering. We want the wisdom to respond skillfully to both. We want the grace and love that will make us brighter lights in the darkness.

We remember and celebrate with same-sex couples in Florida which this week became the 36th state to afford civil recognition to their marriages.

The police slowdown in New York City weighs on our minds. It is difficult to know what to make of it. Many fewer citations are now being given for the sort of infractions for which, in the last decade, 80 percent of those penalized were black or Latino. Many officers are trustworthy and fair. We yearn for a police force in which many more of them are.

We remember today the lives of those displaced across the Middle East.

We remember the dead, massacred at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

We remember the teachers and educators in northern Nigeria, Afghanistan and Somalia in their challenge to provide education and to make a difference in lives lived in extreme conditions.

As winter descends in earnest, we remember those at risk in the cold.

So may compassion and wisdom guide our words and actions to make of us more effective agents of care.