Mon. Mar. 7, 2022

Peace

Anne Williamson

We are making our way through the first week of Lent as the eyes of the world are focused on the country of Ukraine and the human misery unfolding as a result of the attacks on Ukraine by Russia. My heart is broken, I long for peace and I know that one of the most important things I can do in this moment is pray.

We began our Lenten Reading Between the Lines meeting on Wednesday morning with a discussion of Sunday’s Gospel reading and a time of reflection and prayer using Bishop Steven Charleston’s book, Ladder to the Light. The book offers a number of the reflections Bishop Charleston has written over the last 10 years, shaped around the idea of the kiva, the native American subterranean worship chamber. In the final chapter, he asserts that light will overcome darkness: ‘This confidence in the final victory of light over darkness is not for me alone, not for any one faith tradition, not for a private salvation, but for the whole tribe of the human beings.’

We are called to prayer, to pray for peace:

‘What a shout of joy there will be when peace finally comes, when war is only a distant memory and the last would-be tyrant has been sent packing, when the earth is a green garden beneath clear skies and clean waters, when the human family knows no caste of power or privilege, when every child sleeps in safety and no family knows the ache of poverty. On that great day, amid the laughter and the celebration, our descendants will pause to pray. They will say a word of thanks for all of us who kept their dream alive through dark days, who never gave up hope, who passed on the vision until one day it became the reality for a grateful generation.’

Please join me in prayer, as you watch or read the news, and as we journey together through this season of penitence and reflection.

There is an opportunity to gather this evening at 6pm at Temple Israel on State Street in Portsmouth to pray for peace. St. John’s is part of forming an interfaith prayer circle, and we hope to meet on a monthly basis. Please join us if you can, but wherever you are , please pray for peace.

Peace be with you.

Anne