Peace Prayer for Times Like These

Hear our cries, God!
Invasion, occupation, and terror,
bombs, bullets and missiles.
Dead bodies, wounded bodies, orphans,
bombs, bullets and missiles.
Prisoners, hostages, refugees,
bombs, bullets and missiles.
Anguish, hopelessness, rage,
bombs, bullets and missiles.
Destruction on the grandest scale,
the earth cratered with hatred.
Jesus, make it stop.

Every war ends.
Help us find our way 
to these currently unimaginable 
paths to peace.
Give us the capacity to cry
not only for our own losses
but for the losses we have inflicted,
Not only for the inhumanity we have witnessed
but for our own inhumanity.
Replace bombs, bullets and missiles with 
food, hospitals and shelter.
The world reaching out with all its got
to feed the hungry,
to heal the wounded,
to house the homeless.
Give us skilled negotiators,
and architects of reconciliation. 
Most of all give us a will to drop our weapons.
From the smoking ashes, 
a new forest begins to grow:
tiny seedlings of peace
watered with tears of hope.