Global prayer seeps into the fourth week of the bloody conflict in Ukraine; in solidarity, we cry:

Our Father—We seek the center-point of your stillness, despite noxious terrors accompanying the story rattling around in our psyches.

who art in heaven—We engage our spirits within the realm of the Sacred and remember wounds we’ve passed through, their life lessons ennobling our humanness.  

Hallowed be your name—Palms outstretched, we prostrate ourselves before your unfathomable holiness and wait.

Thy Kingdom come—We yearn for color-fresh/grace that alone wipes out Ukrainian atrocities and sooth scarred psyches.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven—We surrender anew within Creative Word’s multifaceted energy where life hums in multiple expanding universes, beyond the perimeters of bleeding Ukraine—It has bled many times before.

Give us this day our daily bread—We yearn for spiritual sustenance, one day at a time, which steadies tentative steps over pock-marked terrains, which embolden hearts to embrace the untried, the unspoken.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us—We own our violence to ourselves and others and ask for the willingness to repair rifts in the social fabric. Our effort does matter.

And lead us not into temptation—We beg for discipline to listen for true guidance, communicated in subtle whispers, not within the roar of mortar shelling or the doublespeak of sanctions.

Deliver us from evil—We pray for protection from the stinking nastiness that passes for life in Ukraine and the world around us.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, both now and forevermore—We thrive within this color-fresh vision, despite the cloying interpenetration of Evil that still surrounds us. We have the protection—we have nothing to fear.

Amen—And so be it.