Author Archives: Autumn Elizabeth

Prayer for US (America)

The events that transpired on U.S. American soil on the Feast of the Epiphany 2021 are familiar to many around the world as well as students of history. They have also shaken many of us to our cores. We find ourselves in the midst of calls for love and peace that whirl along side expressions of rage, fear and betrayal. In these hard moments, we may be able to see the path of love, but we may not be able to find our way onto it. So this is a prayer for us, for U.S. America, for people everywhere who are hurt, who are afraid, who are feeling things that words cannot adequately describe, but who refuse to let anything shake their faith in love, in justice, in transformation, and in each other.

Dear God,

bless those who have shattered my sense of safety,

bless those who have turned a feast day into famine of justice,

bless the leaders and the followers,

and bless the spaces where I can rage, so I can find a path towards something else.

Bless the hateful,

bless the violent,

bless those who hate me and those who seek to kill me.

Dear God of a love more abundant than I can understand,

please bless those who I cannot find it in myself to bless.

Amen.

A Prayer for RBG

Today marks both Rosh Hashanah and the end of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s life. It is a hard time to pray, a hard time to hope, and a hard time to know what to do. Others have spoken more eloquently than I on what actions to take, but here I wanted to offer a short prayer for all of us as we move forward through these next moments and this new year without the #NotoriousRBG.

Dear G-d,

We feel despair closing in all around us. The trumpets do not sound. There is no joyful singing. We feel lost and hopeless. We feel faithless and beaten.

Be with us G-d as we mourn and as we rise. Let our mourning bring fierceness to our struggle. Let our sorrow bring focus to our cause. We cannot give up and we will not give up.

G-d, you are always on the side of humanity and compassion. Let it roar out of us in our every word and every action. Where there is helplessness we will find action. Where there is hate we will sow justice.

May the dying wishes of those who have gone before us be our heartbeat. Let us not waste any more moments fretting, but let us do exactly that which is important to get done.

Amen.

A Prayer to End the Death Penalty

I have been doing a lot of praying as the U.S. Federal government resumes its use of state-sanctioned murder this summer, and as police continue to freely execute black people on the street. As someone who believes in alternative justices and as a person of faith, I work to transform our world and end the death penalty not through the lens of saving those who are different than myself, but because there, but for the grace of God, go I. Those who have been sentenced to die at the hands of our government, or any government, are not lesser people I need to save, but my equals, or in fact, the very people that may save me. I hope that this prayer offers us all renewed strength in our struggle for a more just world.

Dear God,

Let me remember that I am the outcast and the broken, that those who have been accused of harm are no different from myself. Remind us God that we have all committed acts of harm and that we have all felt the pain of being harmed. Let us find strength in this unity, let us find power in this unity, and let us use this unity to end not only the death penalty but all unjust practices that divide us. May we act always as people united by your unending love for us all.

Amen

A Prayer for MLK Day

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For me, as a US American citizen, this Martin Luther King Jr. Day feels especially intense, because this same week this country will inaugurate someone who has denigrated those who struggled along side Dr. King, someone who has amplified voices of hate, and incited increased violence against the oppressed. 

Dear God, 

I pray today for those who make shit happen.

For those who do good, even when it goes unnoticed.

For those who seek justice, even when it is hard.

For those who show up, even when it is dangerous.

I pray today for those who are radicalized by love and who will not stop loving even in the face of hate.

I pray today for those who don’t just speak and share words of peace, but who act with a fierceness of love that bring justice to all.

I pray today for all of us, that we hold ourselves accountable to peace and love and justice, and that we be those people whose work and words bend the moral arc of the whole universe towards justice.

Amen.

 

A Prayer for Overwhelming Times

By: Autumn Elizabeth, Editor in Chief 

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You may have noticed we haven’t written much as of late. The recent results of the US American election have produced increased violence, hatred, and fear in US America and around the world. Many of us have been at a loss for words, and I personally, have been at a loss for prayers in this difficult time. I have felt obligated to pray for justice, for hope, for revolution, for strength, for the oppressed, but these prayers wouldn’t come, at least not yet. So here is the prayer that feels most true for me right now–a prayer that honors the overwhelming weight of the struggles that lie ahead. 

Dear God,

I have searched high and low,
for a prayer to help me
during these overwhelming times.

I have looked to holy words and blessed scripture,
I have searched the prayers of the saints and sages,
I have read the divine words of kings and crones.

I have failed to find the strength I seek;
failed to find words that will help me overcome my shock and fear.

Instead, I have found a wishful prayer.
A prayer that speaks to the overwhelmed voice inside me,
that needs a moment to be honored before being overcome.
So I will take a moment to pray this wishful, and perhaps cowardly prayer,
and I will take comfort in knowing even Jesus,
in all his revolutionary glory, needed this prayer too.

Dear God, oh dear, dear, God,

Let this cup pass from me.
Let this cup pass from me.
Let this cup pass from me.

Amen.

A Prayer for Rock ‘n’ Roll

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So here’s to your survival and swimming up the stream, crossing over one dam after another, until we get to Rock and Roll Heaven’s gate.– Indigo Girls

I went to my first rock concert when I was 16. I spent a lot of my late teens and early 20’s in rock venues, practice spaces, and recording studios. Sometimes the music was good, sometimes the music was bad, but it was always freeing, and often holy. I know there are people out there who disagree with me, but when I hear that perfect guitar rift, I’m pretty sure I’m hearing the voice of God just as clearly as when I hear a perfect rendition of Ave Maria. So here’s a prayer for rock ‘n’ roll, for those who make it happen, regardless of their beliefs, and for the ways it brings people together, makes people free, and gives us all something to sing about.

To the Universe that gave us Jimi Hendrix, Neil Peart, and Debbie Harry,

Forgive us for those who railed against music in God’s name.
Hatred has never been holy, and creation almost always is.

I pray today, for a world with louder music and quieter bigots;
a world with more guitars and fewer guns;
with more cowbell and less hate.

Did you hear that world? I’ll say it again,
more cowbell, less hate.

Dear God let that be our refrain.

Because lyrics never murdered,
cymbals never orphaned,
and bass drums have never lynched anyone.

God, give us a world with more songs that let us glimpse heaven even while they scream about highways to hell.

Because “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” better represents my faith than “I will build a great, great wall”.

Because there is justice in a drum fill,
and hope in a guitar wail.

So, God bless the punks, the grunge rockers, the metal-heads, and the classic rock junkies.
Bless the musicians who play too loud and the fans who dance too hard.
Which is to say,
God bless rock ‘n’ roll and God bless me.

Amen.

A Prayer for Spacious Places

When hard pressed, I cried to God;  they brought me into a spacious place.–Psalm 118:5

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This is a prayer for those spacious places where we find peace, love, and freedom. These places are both physical and metaphysical. They are urban, suburbia, rural; they are the homes of our friends, the tents of our lovers, the blankets of stars.

Oh universe of all things great and small,

I have seen the wonders of this world, and my heart.

I have been split open by the view from the tallest mountain, by the stars shining from the tallest building, by climbing the tallest tree.

These places have broken the broken parts of me,
where grief and pain have made me small and petty.

I have seen so many places where anger has made everything small,
where tiny pebbles of hate burn without fire.

I wish to live only in places where I can be my biggest self.

Places of risk, possibility, enormity, and freedom.
Places that are so immense they terrify and inspire me.

Yet, out of all the spacious and immense places I have been,
from the tallest tree that I have ever climbed
to the view from a building trying to reach the heights of Babel,
the most spacious place I have ever known is love.

Let me live there always.

Amen.

A Prayer for the Dead

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Dear God,

They say that dead men tell no tales,
but I am not so sure.

I think, perhaps, it is only the dead that can tell us anything at all.

Through their death they show us the mirror of mortality.

They show us the flaws in our own lives.

The deaths of those we cherish tell us each the stories of our own ends,
and give us the power to rewrite them.

I believe it is every person’s last gift, to shed light on living through their dying.

Those who I morn have taught me lessons, have told me their stories, and have given me strength to change my own.

So I ask that the dead be blessed, as they have blessed me by living and dying.

Amen.

A Prayer for Encouragement

By: Autumn Elizabeth, Editor in Chief 

Sometimes we can be, as the Lit songs says, our own worst enemies. When others encourage us, we hear only platitudes; when we see a new journey ahead, we let fear and doubt close the door. Sometimes we waste our time waiting for the perfect words of encouragement, when perhaps there is no such thing.

I am not immune to this kind of thinking. I spent much of our recent hiatus in such a state of waiting. Ultimately, I realized that no one’s words would give me sufficient encouragement, except for the words of my best, most-hopeful self. So here is the prayer I created to encourage that voice, to encourage myself, and to start sharing all of these prayer with all of you again.

My Dearest Self,

You are capable.
You are capable despite your failures, past and future.
You are capable despite your doubts and the voices of those who doubt you.
You are capable because you are loved, more than you will ever know.

You are capable because against all odds, you have still continued to exist.

You are capable because you are part of a species that is the result of millions of random mutations. You are part of a species that flew to the moon, photographed the stars, and measured galaxies.

You are capable because you are part of the same history as poets, philosophers, and prophets.

You are capable because you have dared to ask yourself for encouragement.

You are capable because you said so.

Amen

Forgiveness In The Bible, Forgiveness In Real Life

By: Autumn Elizabeth, Editor in Chief
Forgiveness, Bible, Love

If your loved one sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.
Luke 17:3-4

I am not unfamiliar with the Bible, and I know full well that it contains quote a few messages like the one above— messages about forgiveness. But, well, in real life, I don’t find these teachings so easy to follow, especially when it comes to people I love.

The above passage from Luke is one that has always been hard for me. A stranger knocks into me on the street, I can forgive them. I find it is easy because there isn’t any baggage there. But someone I love, someone I trust, if they hurt me…well I find that finding forgiveness and reconciliation is a bit harder than the verse from Luke makes it appear.

Recently, I found myself in a situation where someone near and dear to my heart hurt me in a way they have done before. My loved one was of course sorry, and asked for forgiveness. Part of me knows that it is better for both of us if I forgive them, that it is indeed the “proper Christian thing to do”. But because it isn’t the first time, because they aren’t a stanger on the street, I was finding forgiveness a little hard… maybe really hard.

I understand that forgiveness is good, but when I read passages from the Bible, especially the one above from Luke, part of me thinks to myself “Come on! Seven times in one day! And I still have to forgive them!”.

But that is what I am called to do if I want to follow Jesus, it may be what we are all called to do if we want to find our own peace. Forgiveness has let me move on from hurt, it has helped me rebuild trust with people I love.

There is another verse from Luke that I find helps me when I am struggling with forgiveness of those I love. In Luke 6:37, we are told that if we forgive, then we will be forgiven. When j am really struggling with  this forgiveness business, I like to read both of the versions of that passage below.

Jesús también les dijo:

“No se conviertan en jueces de los demás, y Dios no los juzgará a ustedes. No sean duros con los demás, y Dios no será duro a ustedes. Perdonen a los demás y Dios los perdonará a ustedes.

and

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

The first version focuses on how God will forgive us, will not condemn us, will mot judge us and so we are called to do the same. For me this connection with God is important for learning how to forgive those I love. I know i will need the help of the divine if I am going to truly reconcile and forgive those who have made mistakes seven times a day. the connection with God’s forgiveness also reminds me that i make far more than seven mistakes a day, and some i even forget to seek forgiveness for, and yet the divine spirit of love forgives them all.

The second passage doesnt mention God’s forgiveness, although it is implied. For me though, side by side with the other version of the same passage, the second version reminds me that the people i love are forgiving me just as often, if not more than I am forgiving them. We are all in this forgiveness business together.

Ultimately, forgiveness in the Bible can seem a lot easier than it does in real life, with real loved ones and years of history included. Yet the Bible, for me is also a resource when this forgiveness stuff gets really hard. It often helps me find new ways to look at forgiveness in real life. For me, the messages in the Bible also remind me to forgive myself when I am having trouble forgiving other, and that in the end, even if I can’t forgive someone seven times in one day, we are all still unconditionally forgiven, and loved by the divine.