My “brand” is not Christian,
or Activist, or even Ally.
Sure, I try to live these models to the best of my ability – but when
it comes to my art and my “persona” I
try to be as non-political as possible.
I’m an entertainer, writer, musician who identifies most closely with
comedy, and based on my irreverent sense of humor, I’m pretty sure I have the
soul of a perpetually 13-year-old boy.
But then there’s this…
This aching I’ve felt so acutely since the massacre at Pulse
in Orlando. This heavy, heavy weight in
my soul compounded daily by the pain and suffering of people I know and people
I don’t – people I’ll never have the
chance to meet, because their lives were ended just because they were in the
wrong place at the wrong time when another person – another human being acted out in a violent way.
I cried – really cried
– yesterday when I found out about all the families who lost their lives in
Bagdad. And today I’m crying because I
know that specifically my black friends – all of them – are
mourning the senseless death of Alton Sterling.
And I hate this
because I feel so f-ing helpless!!! So
here it is. All I can do. I can pray.
It’s okay if you don’t believe in a “guy in the sky.” But even scientific studies validate the
positive effects of prayer, meditation, goal setting and focused
thought/intention. So if you are so
inclined – if you also ache for the countless victims of violent acts
perpetuated by other human beings, if you can humble yourself for just a minute
to look inside at the state of your own heart – this seems as good a place to
start as any.
Dear God (or insert
Deity of choice,)
Please take Alton
Sterling into your loving embrace.
Please bless his friends, family and members of his community with an
outpouring of love, understanding and healing.
Please pour out your
grace on all our communities and the law enforcement officers that serve them
across this nation. Help those in
positions of greater power meet their responsibilities with greater temperance,
greater equity and increased civility.
Help us to look at our
own hearts with honesty and cast out all fear, bigotry and hatred. Please
shower us all with more love for our brothers and sisters in every walk of
life. Teach us to celebrate our
diversity together, and so create a greater sense of unity across all man-made
divides.
I know, Father, that
as no respecter of persons, you do not esteem one person, one gender, one
culture, one race above another. For we
all are your creation and you love us all as one. Teach us that same love, across cultures,
across, faiths, across ethnicities.
We know that we are
broken. Please take our broken hearts,
and make them whole in your love, that we may love each other more perfectly –
that we stand united as one people against fear, against hate, and against
oppression.
Let us start today by
mourning with those that mourn – the family of Alton Sterling, the countless
people maimed and killed in Bagdad, the victims at the airport in Turkey, the
innocents at Pulse night club – and the thousands of victims daily across the
globe whose lives are cut short in acts of violence, hate and apathy.
Help us all to bear
the mantle of responsibility to make this beautiful world you gave us a home of
peace, tolerance and love. Help us
remember that, here, on this little tiny spec of the vast expanse of the
universe, we truly are one.
Help us to be slow to
anger, quick to forgive, patient in our actions and thoughtful in our
words. Help us to help each other
fulfill our greatest potentials as individuals and communities. Help us to see
in each human we encounter on our great journey, the pieces of us that they
share.
Please, God, I do my
best to do my part every day, and yet when my friends are aching because of
injustice, because of violence, because of death and destruction, I know that
somehow I have not done enough.
If words are all I
have, then please help me to use mine to lift others up, show others hope and
light, and to inspire change in those whose hearts are most in need.
I beg for your
blessing.
Amen.
