The “bless you/benedictions” section of The People’s Priest blog, is a collection of monthly prayers for targeted communities that affirms the spiritual realities of oppressed peoples while also challenging the powers that be to repent of their oppressive ways.
Listen Here:
May You Always Be Disturbed
May you always be disturbed when pain runs rampant throughout the world.
May you always be disturbed when the human family is crucified by hunger and thirst.
May you always be disturbed when black men are strangled and exterminated by white men, as if they were animals primed for the slaughter.
May you always be disturbed when children, newly born, are abandoned in waste bins and young children are locked in cages with tears in their eyes.
May you always be disturbed whenever any person sales their humanity in exchange for a gun.
May you always be disturbed when women and children are brutalized and murdered.
May you always be disturbed whenever one of our human siblings, chooses to end their life because they would rather have a moment’s of peace, than a lifetime of agony.
May you always be disturbed. Maybe the disturbance will shake you up enough to get upset, to rid your spirit of compliance, to rid you of a “let’s all just get along” attitude. Maybe, just maybe, you will be disturbed enough to take a chance on love and dare to have a broken heartwhich pours forth compassion, propels your feet into marching towards freedom, kick you into the middle of conflict to protect the vulnerable.
May you always be disturbed by the screams of mothers when their children are stolen from their embrace.
I pray you are disturbed into caring; maybe then, like Christ, you will give up every moment of your life just so another life might have a chance to see the sunrise.
+Amen
