This is a prayer we are reluctant to pray
because it is so hard to name what we fear out loud.
We go through our days trying to pretend
that life as normal will continue forever,
but that is harder and harder to sustain.
And so we need this prayer where we lay out
the disasters of climate change to you and to each other:
the loss of species never to be seen again,
the bleaching of the coral reefs,
the submersion of coastal regions,
the dislocation of populations,
the rains that don’t come and the inevitable famines,
and the disaster of hearts hardening against these losses,
and against those who are suffering.
God, will you be with us in the day of trouble
if it turns out to be an era of trouble?
Are you with us in the great melting of the ice caps,
in the great migrations of peoples,
in the great dying of species,
in the great guilt as we face our part
in this list of coming disasters?
Alpha and Omega, you have walked with this world
through other cataclysmic changes;
continents drifting, meteors smashing,
volcanoes erupting and many mass extinctions.
We feel so small in the story of the world,
and yet our actions have such big consequences.
Spirit of God, continue to hover over the face of the deep.
You pronounced this earth good,
and we trust that you can bring salvation
to the created order, and to us,
in your mercy and in your love,
which we cannot destroy.
Amen.