A lament

Let us pray for…

Those among our community who have lost loved ones to sudden and violent death.

Those with us who live in fear.

Those who are without employment, food, shelter, or family.

Those who suffer from disease, addiction, chronic pain, mental illness, or impending death.

Those among us who are depressed.

Those who have lost hope.

Those who feel themselves rejected or despised.

Those with broken hearts.

Bring us, O Lord, into the pain of our sisters and brothers around us
That the wide circle of our support
May somehow hold all the tears
May somehow quell the fears
May somehow mend us and bring us closer to one another and to you.

Grant us grace to see the other’s hurt
Cry the other’s lament
Wrench with the other’s grief
Consume the other’s sorrow
Until it is no more the other’s
But it is lost in the prayers and the love of the body.

Bring healing where it can be brought
Bring comfort where it cannot
Bring patience for another day
Of waiting for the raw wound to close.

Cry with us, O Lord
Do not cease to hear us
Do not turn away from us
Do not lose patience with us
Remember when you were one of us
The fragility you took on
The rejection you bore
The loss you felt
The tears you wept
Remember the ones who came to you for healing
And the ones you raised from death

We ask not for a fix
Or an answer
Or even an end
Just cry with us
Just be one of us again
Just allow us to be human
And frail and weak and rejected
And break with us
Ride the waves with us
Point the way home
And we will get there someday