Iraq Anniversary Three

Prayers, Poems, Hymns and Readings for March 2004 Vigils

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with DISCOMFORT ...
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with ANGER ...
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with TEARS ...
To shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war.
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And to turn their pain into JOY.

And may God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS...
To believe that you can make a difference in this world,
So that you can DO what others claim cannot be done. Amen

* * * *

Prayer of St. Francis

LORD
make me an instrument of thy peace;
where there is hatred; let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

DIVINE MASTER
grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that
we receive, it is in pardoning
that we are pardoned, and it
is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.

* * * *

A Prayer for Peace
From the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program

God of justice and peace, love and life, we confess that we are often overcome by the loud and persistent voices of fear and anger. We do not hear the voice of Jesus, which seems but a whisper.

Fear trumpets, “Kill those whom you fear may kill you. The strong shall inherit the earth and the rich shall forever rule the earth.”

Yet Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

Anger proclaims, “Those who live by the sword shall not only live, but flourish. Might makes right.”

But Jesus says, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword shall die by the sword.”

Fear instructs us, “Forgive no one. Those who wrong you are wrong; by forgiving them, you excuse the wrong and only encourage them.

Yet Jesus warns us, “If you do not forgive people their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Anger declares, “Hate those who hate you; loving those who hate you only encourages them to take further advantage of you.”

But Jesus asks, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.”

Fear shouts out, “Show everyone how strong we are so they will be afraid to challenge us. This is the way to prosper.”

Yet Jesus asks, “What does it prosper people to gain the whole world and lose their life?”

The voices of anger and fear seem so strong, the wisdom so alluring, the way so sensible and safe.

Still Jesus tells us that there is another way—the way of peace and justice, the way of love and life. When we lack the courage to seek your way, O God, when fear and anger overwhelm our faith, encourage and embolden us. Open us, O God, that we may follow the Prince of Peace. In Jesus’ name, we pray.

Amen.

* * * *

A Reflection by
Archbishop Oscar Romero
Martyred Roman Catholic Bishop of El Salvador

This what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations
that need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that.
This enables us to do something
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace
to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results
but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are the workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets
of a future not our own.

* * * *

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision."

* * * *

Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

"If we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.."

* * * *

Closing Prayer, “For Courage to Do Justice”
Alan Paton, South Africa

O Lord, Open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; Open my ears that I may hear their cries; Open my heart so that they need not be without succor; Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, not afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich. Show me where love and hope and faith are needed, and use me to bring them to those places. And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for Thee. Amen.

* * * *

Matthew Fox
From: "The Coming of the Cosmic Christ"

"Imagination denied, war ruled the nations," William Blake observed nearly two centuries ago. Yet, it was not until the twentieth century that we learned how thoroughly war can rule nations, how nations like our own can spend trillions of dollars on weaponry and war preparations while its young fall into despair spawned by unnourished imaginations: apathy, dropping out, drugs, alcohol dependency, punk behavior, suicide. When war rules nations long enough it also begins to rule the nation's young. War turns inwards and against the self.

If the divine power of imagination within us all is not tapped for its beauty and surprise, ecstasy and possibilities, it will degenerate into self-loathing, self-contempt, and violence -- that is, war -- toward self or others.

...(A) feeling of powerlessness is overtaking our times. From it, as Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy points out, comes despair, and despair conceals apathy. Apathy, Macy teaches, is not a lack of interest or caring, but the cover-up we create when powerlessness overwhelms us. When mother imagination is dying, powerlessness takes her place.

...If we are committing matricide of our imaginations and creativity, then in May's words (in "Courage"), we are killing the very "source and fountainhead of our being.." We are killing the soul. And, we are seriously distorting and limiting what our left brain or reason might otherwise accomplish. May believes that imagination deserves to be understood as "a principle in human life underlying even reason, for the rational functions, according to our definitions, can lead to understanding -- can participate in the constitution of reality -- only as they are creative." The left brain cannot go it alone! No father without mother. How shall we revive our power of imagination and creativity?

* * * *

Let Us Mend the Broken Circle
By Esther Mohler Ho, 12-03
(to be sung to CWM Rhondda - Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah)

Let us mend the bro-ken cir-cle,
End all wars and heal the earth.
Our Cre-a-tor wills earth's whole-ness,
Calls us to as-sist re-birth.
We are called to end op-pres-sion,
Prac-tice love and help to heal,
Prac-tice love and help to heal.

Earth is woun-ded by blind plun-der
And de-filed by waste-ful-ness.
Self-ish-ness has brought dis-as-ter,
Land and peo-ple in dis-tress.
We are called to work for jus-tice,
Heal-ing wounds brought on by greed,
Heal-ing wounds brought on by greed.

We must tame our wild con-sump-tion,
Learn to live sus-tain-a-bly,
Ban-ish wea-pons, seek so-lu-tions,
Scale the walls that should not be.
We are called to love and nur-ture,
Weave the cir-cle of God's peace,
Let's_weave the cir-cle of God's peace.

* * *

The poems that follow are posted with the permission of the authors for use in religious and educational settings. The authors retain the copyright.

Dead Children, Broken Lives

                Do I hear the voices of the little ones? My
                Ears were once closed to their
                Agony. I didn't understand the
                Death of innocence. When Jesus said "Suffer little
                Children to come to me," I found it
                Hard to believe he meant those
                Iraqi kids, so different from my own. When he said
                "Love your enemies," I was
                Determined to cheer for our decision to
                Rain down bombs to destroy the
                Enemy. My hate killed my compassion and
                Numbed my soul. Now I realize that
                Before the world can change, I must
                Repent of hate. God,
                Open my eyes, help me
                Know that you love
                Every child, young or old.
                No one is denied access to your
                Love. Let the children come is your
                Invitation to all who are
                Violated by war; aggressor and victim alike; to
                Experience Your peace at the Beloved
                Son's knee.   Amen

-- Lorene Clark Moore

* * * *

A Death, Reported in the Observer
September 7, 2003

Farah Fadhel was only eighteen
when she was killed.
She thought she could talk
with her smattering of English,
plead with the American soldiers
spraying her apartment with bullets.
She thought they would listen.

An American soldier
threw a grenade through her window.
She died
slowly and in agony
legs shredded
hands burnt and punctured by metal splinters.

Farah Fadhel was only eighteen.
Her death is not recorded
by the foreign rulers of her country:
"We do not keep track
of civilian casualties."
She thought they could listen.

-- Carolyn S. Scarr
September 9, 2003
(c) 2003 Carolyn S. Scarr

* * * *

Poem (Untitled)

A grief I cannot know
joins with anger in your eyes.
Your cousin died, you tell me. All should pay.
Iraqi, Arab, Muslim -- the whole lot
deserve to die. And I can only say
I can't pretend to know your grief.
I'm sorry for your cousin's death.
This Iraqi woman shared your loss.
Please see -- her son lies bombed in Basra's streets
his broken body, her twisted tear-streaked face.
Anger fades. Beside me Oakland man,
Iraqi woman in the photograph, mirror
a grief I cannot know.

-- Carolyn S. Scarr
February 27, 2002
(c) 2002 Carolyn S. Scarr

* * * *

"In this sign conquer"

Thus endeth the reading of the first lesson
faith hope love.

The greatest of these ??
the least ??
crushed beneath
the victor's armored boot,
slashed to ragged strips
broken on the wheel
burned in inquisitions pyres.

In this sign conquer
the people of six continents
of uncounted islands.
In this sign
slaughter and enslave.

Tortured and bleeding
a man who lived love's power
in the face of empire and its servants
dies

in this sign.

-- Carolyn S. Scarr
April 20, 2002
(c) 2002 Carolyn S. Scarr

* * * *

The Man in the Escher T-Shirt

The trembling hand
holds the pen
that draws the trembling hand

They crawl around his shirt
the trembling hands
each drawing the next

They box him in
drawing themselves
on his dirty white shirt

He sits on the planter's edge
white and scraggly
engulfed in self-drawing hands

His hands tremble
He tells me
My brother was killed

My brother was in Iraq
He died for his country
Hands tremble on his shirt

-- Carolyn S. Scarr
October 14, 2003
(c) 2003 Carolyn S. Scarr

* * * *

painting the market

clear skies
sun shining
good for tomatoes

cluster bombs
frag the market --
fruit, vegetables
organs, limbs
strewn across street scene
painting it in
blood

                I remember guava bombs.
                What fruit is this?

-- Carolyn S. Scarr
   June 7, 1999
   (c) 1999 Carolyn S. Scarr