On Tuesday, January 19, I offered a prayer on the steps of the Indiana State House as part of a community interfaith prayer service. The invitation said they needed a woman faith leader who could pray as all the dozen or so faith leaders speaking so far were men.

I offered this prayer as a child of God, as a wife, as a mother, and as the first woman senior pastor in the 164 year history of my congregation:

God of the orphan,
God of the immigrant,
God of the widow,
God of the imprisoned,
God of the hungry,
God of the thirsty,
God of the oppressed,
God of the depressed,
God of the sick,
God of the lonely,
God of the dying,
God of the streets,
God of the people,
God of Trayvon Martin,
God of Breonna Taylor,
God of George Floyd,
God of Lisa Montgomery,

We confess that in the face of injustice we often remain silent.
When your children cry out in the streets “I can’t breathe” we watch in silence, paralyzed by fear, guilt, and shame for we know we are complicit in this evil that values whiteness and demonizes blackness.
We repent for this era of corruption, racism, and greed that dragged us all through the valley of the shadow of death.

We pray for mercy.
We pray for forgiveness.
We pray for grace.
We pray for change.
We pray for transformation.

On behalf of the hurting people, we cry out to our God of Compassion who hears our cries and wipes away every tear.

God of Hope,
God of Love,
God of all faiths,
God of Reconciliation,
God of Reparations,
God of Restoration,
God of Redemption,

Lead us onward into this new day.
Lead us further along the arc of the moral universe that bends towards justice.
Lead us into an era that will make all of our children, black, brown and white, ambassadors of peace and freedom for all the world.
Lead us in the way of dignity, equality, and respect as we work together to build the Beloved Community here on Earth.

Help us God.
Save us God.
Guide us God.

Hand-in-hand with the Holy One, may we leave behind our fears, our terrors, our midnights of despair, and embrace the sacred calling to fulfill our interconnected destiny of liberation and justice for all.

With you, God, we believe this is possible: to live in peace with one another, to live in such a way that demonstrates with our actions our love for our neighbor as our selves.
Let us put away our selfishness, our pride, our obsession with might over right.

Let us lay down our weapons and pick up the pen, writing a new chapter of peace in this land.

We pray this in the Great Name of our Living God….the Creator of us all. Amen.