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