Photo credit: Kevin Banatte

Rev. Mykal Slack, Community Minister for Worship & Spiritual Care

Enter into this moment with us breathing deeply…calling upon all the Sources of Love and Light that are within ourselves and outside ourselves as we pray…

Spirit of Life, Sources of many names and of no name, allow us, in this moment, to be aware of the beating of our own hearts. We enter grateful. Grateful for the people all around us — in our neighborhoods, cities, and states — who are doing the good work of making sure we’re fed, healing, smiling, adequately medicated, connected, comforted and loved on. Grateful for friends and family, chosen and given, who are picking up groceries and prescriptions, checking in by phone, writing letters, and going on physically distanced outings. Grateful for local officials who are heeding the call to flatten the curve by asking us (sometimes requiring us, if we can), to stay home.

Help us in this time of uncertainty, fear, grief and anger to know that it’s okay to feel all of these things. Remind us that connection and care are the keys to our strength in times like these. Give us what we need to hold one another in the sadness that may creep up when we least expect it and support one another in the distress and anger over what is happening and all the folks who are sick or dying.

In this space, we can surrender all — all our greatest hopes for ways we can care for one another now and all our deep sadness and pain at the ways people and systems can do unfathomable harm. We may not know how to capture the essence of our prayers. We may not know what happens to them. We may not even be sure about who or what may be listening when we pray or direct our energies in particular ways. All that we ask today is that we be surrounded and held, both in our clarity and in our uncertainty, in our hopefulness and in our distress, with love and compassion.

Amen. Ashe. Blessed Be.