The View From Here

October 19, 2023

by Rev. Cynthia Riggin

Beloved church community, with all that is happening in our lives and world, I find myself returning to these two prayers, seeking grounding, comfort, peace, and hopefully, embodiment. I offer them to you and invite you to pray with me. 

Two people, one land,

Three faiths, one root,

One earth, one mother,

One sky, one beginning, one future, one destiny,

One broken heart,

One God.

We pray to you:

Grant us a vision of unity.

May we see the many in the one and the one in the many.

May you, Life of All the Worlds,

Source of All Amazing Differences

Help us to see clearly.

Guide us gently and firmly toward each other,

Toward peace. Amen.

-Rabbi Sheila Weinberg

Watch: Sarah McLachlan’s Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine God, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.