Pray for Kenya and Pakistan

Following the brutal violence in Nairobi and in Peshawar last weekend...



God of our tears and desolation,
You know in your own broken body
The savage pain of senseless violence.
In your dying and rising love
We hold before you the peoples
Of Kenya and of Pakistan:
Embrace them with your comfort,
Encourage them with hope;
And strengthen us to walk with them
The painful, costly road to peace.



28th September 2013

A Prayer for Syria, and more

God of all love and compassion,
We hold before you the holy and historic lands
Of the Middle East, where continents,
Cultures, faiths and peoples meet
With trepidation and with hope.
Grant to those who suffer, comfort and courage
To all who lead, wisdom and restraint,
And to us all a passion to work
For that deeper peace and justice
That is your eternal longing
For your whole Creation.
Amen

OF TIDES AND TIMES

Deep stillness as the morning tide recedes:
Gently rippled water silently gives way
To furrowed sand and shallow pool.
Small boats, denied their raison d'être,
Surrender to the dying of the sea
And take their rest, now flotsam
On the shore: conspirators with nature,
They bide their time, still-beached as crocodiles.
And time there is, around the clock face
Of this fragile isle where wind and sun
In turn mark out the fleeting moments
Of our passing stay, inviting us to
Deeply breathe the ocean's oxygen.
Such azure restoration of the soul
Brings from the Deep, deep peace.


Rodrigues Island,
Indian Ocean
August 2013