May 25, 2022

Beloved in Christ:

Today I was going to write to you about the joy of the end of a school year, our pride and love for our high school seniors, and the longed for relief of entering into the rhythms of summer in all areas of our lives.

Instead, I am writing to you to ask you to pray for our teachers. We have several teachers at Calvary, both active and retired. I am asking you to pray for our children, who wake up each day to an increasingly violent world. I am asking you to soak your lives and your work and your actions and your hopes in prayer. To pray for parents among us who are sending children to school today. For grandparents, for all of us. To pray for those who are just beginning to process their grief in Tops Market in Buffalo, New York after the mass shooting there a week ago. And then, even as they are still burying their dead, parents in Uvalde, TX, will be burying theirs. And then, I am asking you to deeply examine your own souls, and to deeply examine what you believe our country’s leaders should be doing to effect change so that mass shootings become harder and harder to cause. We have, as Christians and as members of this great country, an obligation to work towards justice and equality, towards peace and progress. Without getting into debilitating blaming and distracting examinations of others’ motivations, it seems clear to me that no one wants the continued murder of people going about their normal days.

Holy God
Holy and Mighty
Holy Immortal One
Have mercy upon us.

Creator of us all, Creator of love,

Pour your healing presence upon those who grieve beyond measure in these days. Receive into your arms of grace all who were killed at Robb Elementary School this week, and in Tops Market last week. You love your children God, hold on to these babies and the teachers who loved them, to all who were killed in their normal daily lives. Help us who did not experience these violent events as a personal tragedy to our own lives, understand our responsibility of presence and comfort. Help us to understand our feelings of fury, frustration, confusion and fear. Guide us to be people of courage and strength to create change in our broken world and cease the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters, our elders and our children, and our own souls, on the altars of violence and the implements that create violence.

We raise our broken and ravaged hearts to you God, and we beg you for your healing. In the name of the One who conquered death and showed us the Way of Love, Jesus Christ, who walks with us through the Holy Spirit.

Holy God.
Holy and Mighty
Holy Immortal One.
Have mercy upon us.

With deep love and respect for you all.

Beth+