Peace, all.
Here are some words I put together for today's service at Carthage as we gathered to pray for peace in Palestine and Israel. So many thanks to Dr. Stephanie Mitchell for suggesting this beautiful song for the service and to Dr. Maggie Burke for bringing the choir as well as leading and directing the singing.
Feel free to use/modify in your house of worship.
A reminder that if you are reading this on your phone, you can flip your phone to a horizontal position to read a bit more easily.
Peace.
Tom
[ image source ]
Song: Dona Nobis Pacem (translation: Give Us Peace)
You are fed when the hungry share our food, O God.
When the thirsty drink, your tongue is satisfied.
When peace and justice kiss once more,
when the lowly are lifted from below,
when the meek and the peacemakers
and the justice-thirsty are blessed,
you are there. You are the blessing of them all.
Your voice is near to our day-to-day–
from the margins, it beckons. It pleads:
that, where there is death and hatred,
we might sow resurrection and healing–
desiring that the world be made right again.
But where are you when violence is our cry–
when we hunger for slaughter, when we thirst for blood,
when we dance with joy upon the graves of anyone?
Where have we placed you?
Where is it that we think you are in the rubble we have made?
When there is nothing left that we will share.
When we deem one another dispensable,
when we deem a whole people disposable,
when we deem our siblings beyond a wall:
starve-able, jailable, abusable,
or not even human at all?
What hells have we created here?
What hells we have created here!
What hells rage on
as we stoke the fire and fuel unending flames?
In the name of what?
Do we call our actions “of God?”
Do we call them necessary?
Do we justify to others our death-dealing deeds?
Where are you when we fail one another
and destroy the siblings you have given us to love?
Where have we hidden your voice,
trading plowshares for bombs?
Could it be, on the missiles we launch,
that we have written your unspeakable name?
Surely, this is the case.
God, here we mourn.
Tens of thousands of lives cut short. Of homes demolished.
Of bodies and minds tortured and broken beyond repair.
We pause to mourn these now.
God, here we lament.
What world should have been so that violence would give birth to violence no more?
We pause to lament.
God, here we pray.
For freedom for all to live into the potential with which you have gifted them.
For self-determination for the marginalized and the dispossessed.
For peace and for an end to inequality and death and war.
For the Beloved Community and not the genocide that we make.
Give us the vision of your prophets:
The cow and the bear shall graze;
and the lion shall lie down with the lamb.
Weapons will be tossed to the dust.
Dry bones shall dance and we shall study war no more.
Fear shall become compassion–and tears shall cease.
The earth shall be your home.
And we will dwell in your house, O Lord, at peace, together.
Hold in your love those who have died, O God,
and, as you called forth beauty from chaos at the start of your Creation,
give us strength to speak truth and liberation and peace into the world.
May it be so. May it be so. Amen.
Song: Dona Nobis Pacem
At the end of the vigil, please return your candles, stay to converse with friends and colleagues, or depart in peace to make peace in the world.
If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
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