Feel free to use/share/adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Category: stop gun violence
MicroViolence
It’s never just
Books
Bathrooms
Pronouns
It’s not just
Marriage
Jobs
Names
It’s not just
Dancing
Sports
Scouts
“Belief”
or “policy”
It is
Mental health
Personhood
Belovedness
Anti-Violence
It is
Breathing
Existing
Always
Every Word
For or Against
Counts
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Rainbow Tears
God is crying
Rainbow Tears
God who hung
Their Rainbow
Weapon
In the Sky
Before Jesus
Tread the Earth
God who Dances
With Abandon
God
who Protects
Joseph Lady’s/Rainbow Cloak
Ruth’s Found Family
Jesus of Two Dads
Baptizing the Egyptian Eunuch
God’s weeping
rainbow tears
Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Charlottesville, A Prayer
Here’s a prayer for Charlottesville
Where the gunshots echo across
a million schools in the United States
A Prayer for Charlottesville
For the Black People
who tiptoe lightly across the land
While White Boys bluster loudly
with their guns and tiki torches, because they know who has rights
and who doesn’t, as they high five the police along the way
Here’s a prayer for Charlottesville
Where Heather Heyer was brutally run over
with a car filled with malice and fossil fuel
And now
Where football players, mere children, Black, Young and Gift
Have their lives too lost
Because America cannot
will not
in its obsession with power, colonialism and capitalism
is sinfully unable disarm itself
We are a death cult
Here’s a prayer for our children
brutalized by “Shooter drills”
I remember when I had thought that Columbine was a
historical rarity–Back in the day when I was in high school
I turn forty this year
I remember 9/11 when we cried no more
And gave blood and ate together
And then prayed to God and immediately brutalized
our black and brown neighbors
And bought bombs and guns
Here’s a prayer for America
obsessed with “Safety”
instead of loving our neighbors
Is love safe?
Here’s a prayer for love
Beautiful and fierce
May it renew us in ways we do not expect
Away from cars
and guns
and violence
May we let people rage
and cry
and lament
as needed
And then may we turn our words
Into actions
And to do what needs to get done
We Pray
Amen.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
God!
Decolonize!
Because, Lord I’m tired of Gun violence.
That’s my whole prayer today.
Amen.
Bad News, A Prayer
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
18-20yr Old Gunman, White
Kills 6 Onlookers, And injures 24 more
Independence Day Parade; Highland Park, Chicago suburb, IL
This is not News to You God.
10 Year old Pregnant by Rape,
Just over 6 weeks,
Denied Abortion
This is not News to You God
LGBTQIA reporters being denied access,
to writing articles and opinions, Don’t Say Gay Laws in Effect
Being told their voices are Not Needed
This is not News to You God
God, I fully admit I’m following you,
Not cause its glamorous–
have you seen what people are doing in your name?
I know, I know,
This is not News to You God
But I have nowhere else to go.
Your way is not easy, but it is Just and inclusive;
Because I know you know God, we don’t know what we are doing
This is not News to You God.
So I am not going to turn off the News (much)
But I am going to follow you,
Your promises are more solid than anything human
And…I have nowhere else to go;
This is Not News to You God.
So I’ll Scream and Sigh to You God,
And remind myself, that You Know, and You Know us,
This is Not News to You God.
And take comfort in that fact. As we strive to do better
to make things better.
Amen.
Feel free to adapt/share/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
With thanks to Rev. Tawnya Denise Anderson about her thought provoking fb post about how the disciples stuck with Jesus because they had nowhere else to go, i.e. it wasn’t always exciting to follow Jesus, but it was the best option they had, and sometimes that’s what following God means
4th of July
God,
Here we are again,
Celebrating “Freedom” or whatever
But Black Lives still don’t matter
LGBTQIA rights are worse
Women subjugated
Children hunger and forgotten
Hate crimes up and rising
And I just Can’t,
Free to do what?
What are we celebrating?
I hate how Americans have turned
Freedom into an equivalency for Selfishness
And we all know that this has been a problem
For a while.
But I had some hope in the days of Black Lives Matter
and when Covid efforts were new
That we might actually learn some things.
But we are still a country
That throws more money at war and police
Then schools and social efforts and equality.
Some countries have Kings
We have Capitalism, Liberty, Christianity and White Supremacy
We all are living with the results of this.
So here’s my prayer:
for human dignity,
the right to belong
the right to eat good food, shelter and be clothed
the right to water, education and clean air
the freedom to be oneself.
The right to pray and to refrain from praying
I hope everyone gets a moment to just be today.
And maybe tomorrow, we will work for each other’s freedom’s
Instead of our own.
Please Jesus, show us the way.
Amen.
Feel free to use/share/Adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Promises & Prayers
Someday
I hope
We will raise prayers
No longer wet
With the sacrificial blood
Of children killed by guns
And violence
And hunger
And neglect
And hate.
Some day
We will care
More for health
Than test scores
More for housing
Than lawns
More for queer families
Than breaking hearts
More for disabled people
Than helping porn and “self-advocacy”
More for people of color
Than trumped up blame, hushed up histories, and subjugation.
Some day God,
The kin(g)dom
Will sneak up
On us
Like a cool breeze
On a hot day.
Like dew
On the lawn
Like a rainbow
Coming into focus
And we will all be Beloved neighbors there!
I’m standing in you
And your promise Jesus.
Because at the end
Of the day
Isn’t that what prayer is?
So I’m standing here
Breathing another one
Another prayer
For your collection
Put it on your heart please.
Amen.
Feel Free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Idolatry
God
Jesus
Holy Spirit
How can I pray to the Holy Trinity
In a work of idols?
How can explore the mystery faith
When we humans use labels as weapons?
Instead of names of exploratory wonder..
I don’t know creator,
When humans seem bent on being destructors
And death cults
And weapon makers
How to bear your image, how to preach your image,
how God can I better be your image in the universe??
::am I doing it wrong?:: my very soul whispers.
How can we free ourselves from our idols?
How can we become seed planters and tenders of things that grow?
God I long for healthy growing things..
(And you know I have a black thumb so if it need to be metaphorical so be it)
Our hearts are already broken—return us to life and live I pray.
Return us to community we pray.
Amen
Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Prayer for Peace
Life Giving God
Erase all the things
That Rob us of life
Open the ears
Of those who can’t hear
Break apart the bad policies
And politics
Breath Giving God
You know how to
Get us to become a culture
Of seed planting
Instead of death dealers
Help us to slough off
All the skins
That we think
“Protect” is
Lay us bare before you
So that can finally heal
And find peace
Please
God of Respite
Melt our hearts
And resurrect us
Into tranquility
We pray
Amen
Feel free to adapt/share/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
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