How do we Pray for Peace? Prayer

God
We admit
Confess really

That we do not know how to pray for peace.
We want it to be a magic incantation.

One where we have picked the right side.
So peace happens

There you go God
the mystery of Shalom-Salaam is solved.

But Salaam-Shalom isn’t about sides,
You can’t take the word apart like that
You cannot take the world apart like that

These things are not meant to be broken

There are no sides to peace

Shalom-Salaam
the mystery of wholeness, health
hospitality, healing
peace

No wonder peace is
Created
Constructed
Made

It took a Carpenter-
Or at least someone who worked with their hands
to teach us that.

Blessed are the
Builders of Peace
For they Shall Be
Called.Invited.Named.
Children.Having the Nature of.Inheritors of
God
Allah
Yhwh

Salaam-Shalom (Have I said the spell enough yet, God??)

Our tongues ache
From the words of war
(revenge)

And we know
That we have
Taught it

My soul aches
to teach war
No more
no more
no more

Shalom-Salaam

Teach me
to sit with peace
To hammer
weapons into
Planting tools

Teach me
how find the broken pieces
to plant
And to mend
To nurture
And to tend

To sow
Until we find the wholeness
teach us the mystery of this binding

Salaam-Shalom,
Us
Because we Do Not Know How
And none of Us can do it alone
Salaam-Shalom us,
We Pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/Share with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord.com”

Banksy Dove with a Bulletproof Vest https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend/2022/08/05/banskys-west-bank-dove-and-the-palestinian-shopowner-who-met-the-elusive-artist/

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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