God of all races, nations,
and religions,
You know that we cannot
change others,
Nor can we change the
past.
But we can change
ourselves.
We can join You in
changing our only
And common future where You ‘reign’
The same over all.
Help us not to say, “Lord,
Lord” to any tribal gods,
But to hear the One God of
all the earth
And to do God’s good thing
for this One World.
* * * * * *
Deep patriots don’t just sing the song, “America the
Beautiful,” and then go home. We actually stick around to defend America’s
beauty—from the oil spillers, the clear-cutters and the mountaintop removers.
Deep patriots don’t just visit the Statue of Liberty and send a postcard home
to grandma. We defend the principles upon which that great monument was
founded—“give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free.”
"I don’t understand God as particularly concentrated here or there, like some mystical aura. God is. It states as much in scripture. So yes, God was when the towers came down. God was when we bombed a fairly defenseless country. God is when we wake up every morning and, once again, make the choice either to live into a radical, sometimes dangerously vulnerable love, or to retreat into fear and more violence...."
(click here for the entire essay)
~Christian Piatt
