Prayer Responding to Death of Osama Bin Laden

Prayer in Response to the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
by Durrell Watkins, MA, MDiv, DMin


Dear God who places within our hearts a reverence for all life as well as a passion for justice: The teachers and preachers, sages and saints whom you have raised up to help raise us up have all taught the power of forgiveness, the divinity of love, and the possibility of redemption.

And so we find ourselves this week conflicted.

We have called Bin Laden our enemy; we have remembered with pain and anger the lives lost because of his terrorism. We may have wanted him to be captured to stand trial in a court of law, but that was not to be.

Perhaps his killing was a sad inevitability; and we, at least in some moments, have felt a desire to rejoice even while knowing that our higher Selves would require better of us. We wonder if we can prevail over our enemies without celebrating their downfall. We struggle to remember that even those we hate are loved by you.

We now give our complex and competing emotions to you, trusting that your grace will balance and heal them.

And as the rush of feelings begins to calm within us, draw us together as one human family to work together for peace in our time and for all time; for the sake of your goodness. Amen.