Right Now . . .

Prayer offered during International Day of Peace Service

"We need to build not only geographical but spiritual bridges between people. . .”                                                        – UNESCO

TIME OF SILENCE

"The International Day of Peace is also a Day of Ceasefire – personal or political. Take this opportunity to make peace in your own relationships as well as impact the larger conflicts of our time. Imagine what a whole Day of Ceasefire would mean to humankind."  --International Day of Peace web site

WE CONFESS . . . RIGHT NOW . . . 

Right now, unless there is a last-minute reprieve[fn], Troy Davis is drawing his last breaths on earth. . .  Right now, the Palestinian people are urging the world to agree that they are a people and that they have a country and are being told ‘not here, not now’. . . Right now . . . people we know have bodies filled with cancer and the best that can be done for them is to attack and wage war against the very bodies in which they live . . . Right now . . . families are broken by misunderstanding, violence, bullying, and refusals to reconcile . . . Right now . . . churches hide their own brokenness and protect those who do the worst kind of harm . . . Right now . . . Oh God, right now, we are so broken . . . so far from Your peace . . . forgive us God, we pray . . . right now.

WE COMMIT . . . RIGHT NOW . . . 

Let us create a wall of peace, not of separation and exclusion, not of wailing and mourning, but a wall of peace . . . a visible sign of the commitment we make, right here and right now . . . the commitment to no longer be silent in the face of injustice, unkindness, and violence . . . the commitment to be God’s own peaceable kingdom . . . right here . . . right now.

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Fn.  There was a last-minute reprieve, but it only lasted hours, and Troy Davis drew his last breaths at 11:08 p.m. last night, Wednesday, September 21, 2011.  Execution of Troy Davis

Nineteen Butterflies and A Squirrel

        Driving across Jack Mountain the ten miles from my house to the next town over the other day, I suddenly became aware of an abundance of butterflies.  Being the kind of woman I am, I began to count them.  For those of you interested in such things, I counted nineteen -- some with blue-black wings, some small translucent white, but most bright yellow.
        Oh, and there was one squirrel in the road.  I think he was the same one I saw the day before.
        The sheer abundance of the beauty of the butterflies is what captivated me.  Flapping their wings or soaring on the breeze, they're just magic.  I wish I had the talent of a Romantic poet like Keats to tell you of the dance of the butterflies.  I wish I had the observing eye of the naturalist to tell you what kind they were.
        Even though I am sure the butterflies were not thinking of such things, I can tell you how glad I am to live in this place, where not only are there butterflies, but there are people who take in the news of their presence with the same attention usually given to the arrival of a dignitary from a far away land.
        So as members of Congress stood to give applause to the President of Israel, instead of spending my day wondering why they don't invite the leadership of the Palestinians to come and speak, I marveled that my friends at the lunch table greeted my news about the butterflies with amazed "Really"'s?
        When butterflies and squirrels come to town . . . now that's news!