A Prayer for the World

Dear God -

I'm sure you are aware of the wars, the attack on civil liberties, the homophobia, the poverty, the on-going AIDS crisis in the developing world, the unequal sharing of resources, global warming, and the rest that can be quite frightening. And after billions of years, its quite clear that you are unable or unwilling to wave a mighty hand and fix the mess once and for all. But if you live in the human heart as imagination or as conscience or as compassion or as hope, perhaps you could rise up in human awareness so that more of us do more to make a difference.

Really, aren't we smart enough to fix some of this? Isn't it in our best interest to correct some of this? Maybe it's too big for any one of us or even for a few of us, but surely if enough of us put our minds and efforts to solving these problems, the dreamed of utopian possibilities promised by most religions would actually come to pass, at least in part.

And so God, my prayer is simple...will you please stir a bit within the human spirit to nudge more people toward social action, justice, goodwill, and caring? It's apparently up to us, so, maybe you can whisper into our souls the need to do more and to do better.

It's time for equal opportunity and equal protection. It's time for peace and for healing. It's time for unity and for a recognition of human dignity in all people. It's time for diseases to be cured and for human sexuality to be celebrated and for diversity to be honored and for poverty to be ended and for education to be universally available. It's time, isn't it God? Help us to help ourselves and each other. Help us to do what you obviously cannot do alone. Amen.