Prayers and Meditations for Sandy Hook,
For Ourselves, for the World
*
When I first heard the news yesterday about the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook, I stopped walking where I was, and just stood there.
Later in the night I remembered I have a devotional chanting concert to give on Sunday, and my mind said, “You can’t sing, you’re too shocked and saddened, you can’t.” And then my soul said, “Joseph, you can sing, you MUST sing.” And so sing I will. The sorrow, pain, outrage, and fear must be expressed, and shared, and transformed. My singing will be for that.
These prayers and meditations are for that too.
*
Those falling stars I saw last night
weren’t falling stars at all.
They were angels coming to help us
on such a dark and frightening day.
*
Sorrow sings through the cold winter air,
sadness takes our breath away.
Where do we find hope in the frozen sky?
How can we rise up again?
*
The angels banked their wild turns, wheeled around in the impossible sky, searching for innocence, searching for hope,
ready to enter our broken, desperate hearts
in the form of our presence,
in the form of our embraces.
*
What can we do to help each other?
How can we help bear one another’s burdens?
How can we reach out towards healing ourselves
and each other?
*
Everyone is carrying secret pain.
May we learn to recognize it in each other’s eyes and voice,
for it cannot be totally hidden there.
*
Once we recognize that someone is hurting, may we learn to risk pausing, opening our hearts, listening, guiding, loving,
bearing witness
to each other’s pain.
*
Lift your prayers to the sky, scatter your tears to the earth,
shout your pain to the ocean, open your heart
and grieve, oh nation, grieve.
*
May we search for hope together,
may we search for hope as one,
may we search for hope in the darkness
with the light of each other’s love.
*
May we close our holy books for now
and instead open our arms.
*
The Holy Child rose from the petals of sorrow,
looked deeply into the heart of world,
opened His arms and cried,
“People, let me be born in you.”
*
Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog