To clasp the hands in prayer
is the beginning of an uprising
against the disorder of the world.

— Karl Barth

Grandfather,
Look at our brokenness.

We know that in all creation
Only the human family
Has strayed from the Sacred Way.

We know that we are the ones
Who are divided
And we are the ones
Who must come back together
To walk in the Sacred Way.

Grandfather,
Sacred One,
Teach us love, compassion, and honor
That we may heal the earth
And heal each other.

— Ojibway prayer
in Prayers for Healing
edited by Maggie Oman

Mother of Exiles, Shelter of the Homeless,
we are in need of your mercy.

We ask your blessing on your children everywhere
who are in danger today.

Bless all who suffer from injustice.
Shelter them in the warmth of your love
and safeguard them from the evil that rages around them.

Turn our eyes and hearts to their needs
and give us courage to act for their good.

We ask this, relying on your compassion
and confident in your love. Amen.

— Pat Kozak
in Life Prayers from Around the World
edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

Giver of Life,
we wait with you to bear
your hope to earth's darkest places:
we wait at the places where darkness is
deeper than the deepest pain:
where love is denied:
let love break through.
Where justice is destroyed:
let righteousness rule.
Where hope is crucified:
let faith persist.
Where peace is no more:
let passion live on.
Where truth is denied:
let the struggle continue.
Where laughter has dried up:
let music play on.
Where fear paralyzes:
let forgiveness break through.

— Robin Green
in The Book of A Thousand Prayers
compiled by Angela Ashwin

O God of many names —
Father, Mother, Spirit,
Compassionate One —
Look on us with mercy.

We close our eyes in prayer
And see your face
In our reflections,
Content with what we understand.

In our worship-places
Of stone and wood, sunshine and air,
Surrounded by organ, pipes, incense
Smoke and drums —

Teach us to see beyond
The clouds of eye and skin and hair.
To treasure rivers and children
And creatures running free.

And to refrain from using you
As an excuse to harm any part
Of your creation.

— Lynn Baquie
in The Gift of Prayer,
A Fellowship in Prayer Book

Lord, I am part of the tension
and injustice of the world.

Forgive our human selfishness,
to which I contribute;

heal the resentment between people,
of which I am a part;

and come into the world's conflicts,
in which I share by being human.

Take my unworthiness and sorrow,
and use them in your great work
of healing and redeeming humanity.

— Angela Ashwin
in The Book of A Thousand Prayers
compiled by Angela Ashwin

We repent the wrongs we have done:
our blindness to human need and suffering;
our indifference to injustice and cruelty;
our false judgements, petty thoughts, and contempt;
our waste and pollution of the earth and oceans;
our lack of concern for those who come after us;
our complicity in the making of weapons of mass destruction,
and our threatening of their use.

—Jim Cotter
in 2000 Years of Prayer
compiled by Michael Counsell

O God, in you all things are reconciled
and no estrangement is found:
Give us hope,
even when we can see no way beyond the present conflict.
You are the one who acts
with power when human action fails.
Forgive and heal our failure
to find the way by ourselves,
our human inability even to imagine forgiveness,
our human preference for victory over reconciliation,
and our perverse suspicion that
even to see another point of view besides our own
is to capitulate and lose face.
Help us to seek our worth in your love for us,
and not in any imagined superiority of one over another.
You, O God, who bring good even from great evil,
are one God for all people,
and so we pray to you in hope.
Amen.

— Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
in Women's Uncommon Prayers:
Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated

edited by Elizabeth Rankin Geitz,
Marjorie A. Burke, and Ann Smith

More Prayers and Meditations:
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6