a blessing for collective grief (when thoughts and prayers are not enough)

This world. 
Impossible. 
Unthinkable. 

We are brought to our knees. 
God, today, there is no true north.
And when I last checked, 
the sun did not rise at all. 
Today, the innocent still suffer,
teachers still risk their lives,
families still grieve.

A world has ended without 
any reasonable fanfare. 
And we are sold the fantasy that nothing can be done. 

Help us to know what to feel – rage, grief, sorrow.
And what to do – advocate, protest, lament. 

Blessed are we who let reality in,
though our bodies shudder.

Blessed are we who ask and wait, and ask again
for the courage to change our culture 
whose laws and complicity subsidize death.

God, give us hope that seems hard to find.