A Prayer for Election Day

A Prayer for Election Day

Today I will be spending the day in silence, prayer and reflection seeking the enduring peace of Christ as my soul seems to be at unrest just as much as the world seems to be in these days.

I began to write a prayer to share with you. However, when my dear friend and colleague, Rev. Dave Long-Higgins (a gifted writer and poet), sent me the following prayer he wrote, I knew there was nothing more I could add to his eloquent words and message.

With his permission I share it with you. Friends, may this be our prayer today and in the days to come.

Blessings, Rev. Shana Johnson

ISC Conference Minister

A Prayer for Election Day

written by Rev. Dave Long-Higgins

O Love,

The world carries a weight

As it waits and wonders,

Pondering which position

Humanity’s heart will lean.

There is a tension

As votes cast about

Voicing a view of life

Framed in opposites

Caricatures brought to life

In brutalities too many

And too frequent to count.

But You, O Love,

Will not be divided

By a narrowness of spirit

Loving itself more than You.

You are the great unity

Of creation’s longing

The wholeness of heart

By which the world

Is constantly remade.

So let Your energy

Be the mending grace

Of humanity’s deepest longing.

Let it rise up

In resurrection power

Surprising the statistics

Which settle for spiritual smallness

Unworthy and unable

To conceive the creation

Of a world made new

Already begun by You.

So lighten the burden

Born by betrayals of the love

For which all life is birthed.

By grace unimaginable

Stir humanity’s heart

With strong strokes

Of committed compassion

Siding with the suffering

For which Your Christ

Continually comes,

And constantly heals.

Yes, Love,

Let this heart and mind

Of Thee be in me

And thus find its way

Again and again

Into the life of this weighty world