A Prayer for Racial Violence

God, be near the grieving. 

Hold them in your love.

Free us from our pride and superiority.

Rescue us from a frame of reference

where we are not safe unless others are broken. 

May our community spaces be places

of life and not death. 

Turn our guns into shovels,

our hate into love,

our fear into hope. 

May those of us who are removed from this threat

be shaken from complacency. 

May we see complicity and insist on change. 

May we speak and not be silent. 

God, be near the grieving. 

Hold them in your love. 

Gather them in friendship. 

Rise up again injustice;

may we rise with you.

Amen.