4/15/2021
A prayer from Rev. Victoria Safford
Prayer from Victoria
There come days – and we are living in those days –
there are times – and this moment is that time –
when prayers for peace are mockeries,
prayers for peace ring hollow,
when prayers for peace conspire with complicity,
complacency,
convenience,
white convenience.
It’s not my child who lies there lifeless on the ground.
It’s not my child whose father lies there lifeless in the street.
Let no prayer from my mouth betray them.
There are days, and this is one,
when the prayers for peace I’m paid to pray
are blasphemy
and treachery, pretty as they are,
sweeping out of sight and mind what’s wrong,
what’s hard, what’s true, what’s not an “accident” at all
but meticulous, deliberate and deadly-
this “normalcy,” this “calm,” this lawful, lethal “order.”
Hold us, Spirit, in the holiness of rage,
the disruptive sanctity of sorrow.
For the dead and their beloveds – peace, eternal and abiding. Yes.
But may I be held within, and hold to, fiercely, without fear,
the holy call of this wild, sacred rage.