A Prayer for Memorial Day
...and the long, tangled cost of war
Dear Power Greater Than Myself,
power greater than my fears, greater than my hopes, greater than my limited understanding of life,
We have set this day aside to remember.
We remember those who died IN war.
Whose bravery was not enough to survive the battlefield.
But God, help us also remember those who died FROM war.
Whose bravery was not enough to survive the battlefield of their own post-traumatic minds.
Help us remember those who are still trying to survive wars long past.
Who no longer wear the uniform, but still bear the scars, seen and unseen.
Help us also remember those who died FOR war.
Children and mothers and bakers and doctors and people just walking to the grocery store, whose civilian status was not enough to keep them safe from mortar shells, and who do not have flags and parades in their honor.
May their memory be for blessing,
But may it also be for warning.
May their memory help us not forget the long, tangled cost of war, and to see in our own human hearts all the very things that led them to die.
Amen.
Amen. This poem from Steve Garnaas=Holmes today too:
Sacrifice
Memorial Day:
we remember those who have
made the ultimate sacrifice.
“The price of freedom,” we intone,
believing in violence,
trusting it absolutely
to make us free,
knowing there are others,
the young and innocent,
we will ask to pay that price,
to be the lambs we sacrifice
in our religion of violence,
as we hold high and sanctify
our guns.
We send our young off
to the battlefield to kill,
to the school to be shot.
We will not repent, not yet,
or seek to become more gentle people;
God grant us the honesty to confess
that we do indeed, without apology,
practice child sacrifice.
Already the next classroom,
without spot or blemish,
is bring prepared.
Now that is a Memorial Day Prayer I can honestly pray. Thanks!