SOCIAL JUSTICE PRAYER NETWORK  
May 2013
 

Lean in and listen, intently
Not with curled claws cupped roughly round chapped ears,
But with thick fingertips and tender wrists and inside-elbow cellophane skin
Splayed, spread before the sky

Reach up to receive harmonic resonance, the kinetic world cries
Of tumbling tree blossoms, of springtime Arkansas snowflakes, of downy duck feathers breeze-blown,
Tender tiny shards of the world's heart wailing, wailing, wailing a wall

of grief at roiling strife in Syria; of horror at climate change unchecked
     and the suffocating asthmatic air of economic inequality –
            – with these cancerous debt burdens like asbestos clogging our countries' lungs;
of pain at the prosecution of love and its pastoral protectors, all in the name of the Prince of Peace,

of helpless, fearful, repercussive rage
        as gun violence shatters, daily, the sweet peace of streets and homes
        as drones buzz into the distance to bite with infectious destruction
        as wounding, hurting cities, deny humanity in death, and refuse the return of body to earth, ashes to dust

Lean in and listen, intently
To the earth crying out for the whole body, in grief and horror and rage
And hope. For life lives. The trees blossoms tumble, the land is watered, the ducks take flight.

Listen intensely, then: with skin bared and heart blazing and soul churning
so intently that the sound of this turning, grieving, wounding, healing world
        stirs the Spirit
        and moves, with toe-tapping, Gospel-gasping, dove-descending grace,
                            attuned to the vibrations of life and love and loss,
        until you build up the moral muscle memory required
        to dance as divine disciple,
                            twisting, turning, transforming
        hope set to action         to the drumbeat of love.
—
And this we pray. This we pray. Comforting, encouraging Christ: this, we pray.
 

May's prayer is written by Sean Delmore. Sean lives in Haverhill, MA with his rescue cat, Evander. A graduate of Boston University School of Theology, Sean came to The United Methodist Church through the work of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries. Sean works with LGBTQ students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a member of the New England MFSA Chapter.