National Day of Prayer,
2010
Reverend Deane Oliva,
Minister
Unitarian Universalist
Church of Evansville
Let us pray to the God of
our faith traditions. Let us pray to the source of our higher
aspirations. We come today as one body united in our goals of
wisdom and harmony.
We know how hard it is to be wise when wisdom is hidden in the
complexities of our modern world. We know how
hard it is to live in harmony when we so passionately want
others to find our own truths. Yet we yearn for a Beloved
Community, a community of love and justice, a community of peace
and harmony.
We come in the gratitude
of the privileged, for we in the United States of America are
rich, safe and healthy. We in the United States of America have
the tools, the power, the time and the inspiration of our faith
and our values to work toward harmony.
We seek wisdom. We mourn
with all of the immigrants in Arizona and Oklahoma for we are
all immigrants, some new, some very old. We proclaim that racial
profiling is unacceptable! We know that no one should be singled
out simply because of the color of their skin, the slant of
their eyes, the accent on their lips. Yet we also know that we
must remain free from fear. We proclaim that drug dealing, gang
violence, and human trafficking are unacceptable!
We want them GONE. We stand in solidarity with those
seeking comprehensive immigration reform, with those seeking
justice, safe living conditions, and economic opportunity.
Yet, these problems are
not easy ones to solve and we seek higher wisdom. We pray for
this wisdom. We pray that we might work together to solve these
difficult, frustrating issues. We deplore the us and them
attitudes and pray to work as one, for we are one humanity and
our lives depend on this acknowledgement. We are not red or
blue; let us be one in our quest for a just society.
Today we pray that our
lawmakers not shirk from their duty to stand up in difficult
times and take the mantle of leadership just because the issue
is not easy. We pray that they say as we say,
Now is the time.
Let that spirit of
necessity spark our wisdom and our efforts so that we might have
peace and harmony and, as with all our efforts, let us make sure
that we always and forever, stand on the side of love. Amen
and May it be so.
