For the people of Paris, we pray but we also pray for the invisible peoples whose daily lives — in our own nation and across the globe — are enmeshed in violence.
We confess that too often we turn a blind eye to the pain that our choices cause. We confess that too often we grieve most for those involved in tragedies that remind us of our own vulnerabilities. We grieve for those who look and act like us forgetting that all peoples are your peoples.
As we focus our compassion on France remind us this day that our every action allows us the opportunity to expand love or contract love, to hear & see the divinity within another or disregard their humanity.
Remind us today that in the midst of the grieving you are present, saddened by the failure of your people — all of us — to live as we were created to live.
Move us.
Offer us the grace of one more chance to sow love and justice in a broken world of our own making. Open our hearts to changes in our own behaviors.
May our every action ripple out love, peace, and justice until all of creation is as you dream it can be. Amen.
Tim is a runner, a hiker, a devoted husband, a father of two adult children, and their spouses, and a grandfather of four perfect children. A former early childhood educator, Tim is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He has served as pastor of both Disciples and United Church of Christ congregations. As we enter what we hope is the final phase of the pandemic, Tim is beginning a journey of rediscovering himself and discerning next steps. He writes from his home in Albany, Oregon and wherever the Spirit lures him.
liturgybits.com 
[…] In response to the violence and tragedies last week in Baghdad, Beirut, and Paris, Sarah Pulliam Bailey shared the news that “Pope Francis condemns Paris terrorist attacks: ‘Using God’s name to justify this path is blasphemy.'” Also, at Liturgy Bits, Tim Graves shared “A Prayer After Paris.” […]
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