Who are we to play playground bully?

post-evangelical prayers for mercy, opened eyes, and solidarity with immigrants in a scarred world

Hi friends,

I wanted to offer a few more post-evangelical prayers this week, because that’s what I’ve got.

Well, I’ve got a couple other posts in the pipeline about rest and slowing down and that sort of thing, but we’ll get to those soon enough.

For now, though, everything awful is happening so quickly, and I thought—if I can offer a few words we might consider speaking to the Spirit of Love during this time, I’d like to do that.

Reaching out for something life-giving and sustaining in this time / Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

I couldn’t possibly hope to cover everything going on—it’s a lot, y’all, and I’m guessing you feel it too—but I hope some of these words feel relevant in some way. I also hope you add your own prayers for whatever feels most pressing in your spirit right now. (If you do, I’d be honored to read them and join you in praying.)

As always, I hope you feel one hundred percent free to latch onto anything that speaks to your soul and let the rest go.

---

for a scarred world

God who loves all her children equally—

every single one—

who are we to play playground bully

on a world stage

so deeply shaped and brutally scarred

by our violent ways?

Have mercy, and help us have mercy.

Amen.

---

for opened eyes

God,

woe to the people,

the pastors,

the churches,

the communities

who rejoice at policies that

bring suffering and death.

Open their eyes, our eyes.

Show us all a better way

and help us walk in it.

Amen.

---

because we all lose together

God who has always taught her people

to welcome the foreigner—

what are we doing?

How could we not see

that people who have taken refuge here

not only deserve refuge for themselves

but also enrich our whole communities

and make us stronger by being here?

Their losses are ours, too,

and we grieve and cry

for change.

Amen.

---

for foiling ICE agents

God,

Hide your people under the shelter

of your wing.

When agents come knocking,

may they find no one.

Obscure the vision of those who search;

turn their attention elsewhere.

May their efforts come up empty

at every turn.

Amen.

---

I keep coming back to the thought that all people are God’s people. All children are God’s children.

Kat Armas

wrote these words as part of this excellent piece that deconstructs Vance’s recent claims about *Christian priorities*:

“Colonial ideology has conditioned us to think in binaries and hierarchies — who is in and who is out, who is first and who is last. We struggle to fathom a love that is not ranked, that does not sort people into categories of worthiness. But Jesus seemed to be inviting us into a different world altogether — one where love moves freely and without hierarchy, breaking down the borders we've been taught to build.”

All people are God’s people. God’s love does not exist in hierarchies. God doesn’t build borders but breaks them down.

Or, if the religious language freaks you out: All people are worthy of love, care, and flourishing. All people are connected together. All people are family together.

That’s at the heart of these prayers, I think: moving toward a world where we see how connected we all are and learn to live like it.

Immigrants, queer folks, foreigners, people living in war zones halfway around the world. All connected.

None of us becomes great by trampling over anyone/everyone else. And it feels like a special sort of evil to twist religious words meant for life and love into something selfish, greedy, and violent.

But here we are. And maybe we’re praying, either because of everything or in spite of everything or a little bit of both. And maybe Love is with us, still.

In this together.