Creator of life, source of compassion. Your breath remains the source of our spirit, even as too many of us cry out that we cannot breathe. Lovingly created in your image, the color of our bodies has imperiled our lives.
Black lives are commodified yet devalued, imitated but feared, exhibited but not seen.Â
Black lives have been pursued by hatred, abandoned by indifference and betrayed by complacency.Â
Black lives have been lost to the violence of the vigilante, the cruelty of the marketplace and the silence of the comfortable.
We understand that Black lives are sacred, inherently valuable, and irreplaceable.
We know that to oppress the body of the human is to break the heart of the divine.
We yearn for the day when the bent will stand straight.
We pray that the hearts of our country will soften to the pain endured for centuries.
We will do the work to bind up the wounds, to heal the shattered hearts, to break the yoke of oppression.
As the beauty of the heavens is revealed to us each day, may each day reveal to us the beauty of our common humanity. Amen.
