NIGHT PRAYER: Wednesday 8/6

Today, Lord, the Church remembers your Transfiguration when, on a mountain top, you revealed your glory and your face shone like the sun and your clothes became white as light...

And today, Lord, the world remembers another light, a blinding light, searing human flesh in Hiroshima  and instantly claiming 80,000 men, women and children and, in the aftermath, tens of thousands more of injuries, radiation burns and sickness...

Humankind's inhumanity to humankind:
   Lord, have mercy!
   Christ, have mercy!
   Lord, have mercy!

How easily we forget your command, Lord:
Love one another as I have loved you!

How easily we excuse ourselves when we fail to love 

    on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity,

    national origin, religion, sexual orientation, 

    gender identity, marital status, age, mental and

    physical ability, personal appearance, 

    military status or political affiliation...

How easily, Lord, 

    we drop verbal and emotional bombs 

         in our neighbors' lives...

 
How easily, Lord,

    we sear each other's souls 

        with rumor, gossip and lies...

 

How easily, Lord, 

    we shoot down a neighbor's 

        good name and reputation...

How easily, Lord, 

    we inflict social wounds 

        with our bigotry and bias, 

            our resentment and prejudice...

 

How easily we forget, Lord: we are
    our sister's keeper, 

    our brother's keeper,

    our neighbor's keeper,  

-whoever our neighbor might be

    and wherever our neighbor might live...

Hasten the day when we heed your word
    and love our neighbor 

        as we love ourselves   

    and honor our neighbor's native place

        as we honor the land we call home...

 

You alone are our God and we are your children
    - brothers and sisters, one and all -
and for each of us, without exception

    and with equal love,
you gave laid down your life in mercy 

    for us who often fail to love 

        - in sometimes truly mortal ways...

 

Your peace you gave for us to share

    so help us keep and share your peace 

'til comes the day when peace will rule

    and all your people live as one... 

Protect us, Lord, while we're awake
    and watch over us as we sleep
that awake, we might keep watch with you
    and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.

This Is My Song 

Hymn tune: Finlandia by Jean Sibelius

Lyrics: Lloyd Stone and Georgia Harkness

 If a video doesn't appear below, click here! 

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

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