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We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other, until it becomes a habit - Audre Lorde
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept - Angela Davis
We see things as they are: wildfires raging, heatwaves burning, injustices proliferating. Before the Crime Bill, there was, “The War on Drugs.” Before Katrina, there was the Exxon Valdez. Before George Floyd, there was Trayvon Martin. Before Me Too, there was Anita Hill. Before Breonna Taylor, there was Muhlaysia Booker, and Ashanti Carmon, and Claire Lagato, and Yahira Nesby, and Sasha Wall, and Gigi Pierce, and…
These things are not new to us.
We should not get used to them.
Instead, compassion is calling us to realize what ought to be.
It is with loving defiance that we demand climate justice, gender equity, queer and trans liberation, racial and economic justice, an end to “law and order,” and the carceral state. Because, “No one is free, until we all are free.”
We lift our voices now, singing songs of redemption, with a chorus of blessings on our tongues for each other, if for no other reason than for the sake of kindness.
Because, what if no one’s watching? What if there’s “no hell below us and above us only sky”?
It is here, in this place, at this moment, that we create the conditions for future moments.
May every breath we take awaken us to our connectedness to all things.
May we lean into the groans of our own hearts, and to the suffering of others, offering presence, gentleness, patience, and consolation.
May our hearts be a place of refuge.
May we have the audacity to tell the truth to ourselves and each other, challenging the assumptions and norms that foster systems of oppression and marginalization.
May we persevere, doing the work we have before us, with diligence.
May our anger and grief become fuel to sustain us throughout this work.
May we remember to share our joys and our successes, to break bread together, and to laugh.
May we normalize humanity, heeding the call of compassion for all beings everywhere.
PRAYER SUBMITTED BY:
DELAINE MCCORD, RN (she/her)
Maryland, USA
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