Please join me in prayer: this time of allowing ourselves to feel our connection with each other — with the whole family of humanity.

Spirit of life, God within and all around us, I give thanks for this day — this complicated day — full of light and laughter and love, full of grief, despair, and violence.

For all who grieve those who died in San Diego this week, I pray that they are held in kindness and support. May we all honor the value of religious pluralism.

May all wars be brought to an end. May all who suffer the consequences of violence be healed.

May all be celebrated for what we bring to the glorious tapestry of humanity. May we actively resist the dehumanizing of anyone, and stand firm in our insistence that all people are equal.

In this time when we reflect on those who died believing they were fighting for freedom and democracy, and for those who did. May we honor them by resolving that, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, we “shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I ask for the courage, healing, and resolve that is needed so that no matter what our internal struggles may be, no matter what injustices we have to face, we may live with kindness, with empathy, with compassion. May we practice this today, with ourselves and with each other.

May we, like Stephen Colbert, be rooted in the values of our faith. May fear not rule us. May love be what guides us. May we be the whole, complicated, loving, diverse, and thriving people and community we are meant to be. And may we celebrate that — together — today.

 

— Jane S.