A Prayer for Memorial Day

Global God, don't bless us. Lord, have mercy on us. Have mercy on our arrogance. Have mercy on our mercilessness. Have mercy on our patriotism.
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Flags honor the veterans buried at Fort Jackson National Cemetery in Columbia, South Carolina, on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 2013. (Tracy Glantz/The State/MCT via Getty Images)
Flags honor the veterans buried at Fort Jackson National Cemetery in Columbia, South Carolina, on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 2013. (Tracy Glantz/The State/MCT via Getty Images)

Countries brawl with guns of steel,
nations boast and do not feel.
Foreign mothers, sisters, daughters, wives
have paid the cost for American lives.
But they are not foreign. They are made
in God's image.

Bombs fall and shrapnel damages,
anger burns and towns are ravaged.
And while this happens, we grill out.
We wear our red, blue, and white,
enjoying the fruit of violent fight.
And we grill and sing, praying that God
will bless our America, the "land of
the free and the home of brave."

We grill out, forgetting lives lost.
We grill out, ignoring the cry of the innocent.
We grill out, smothering distant calls for justice.
We grill out, sustaining an economy and market built on mounds of blood.

Global God, don't bless us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Have mercy on our arrogance.
Have mercy on our mercilessness.
Have mercy on our patriotism.

You are not a tribal god, favoring the few
over the many.
You are not a national god,
blessing one country while cursing the other.
You are not a Christian god, loving us, while
hating others. You are not an ethno-centric god,
erecting a sign saying "Need Not Apply."

O God, call us to love.
You are love.
Make us love.

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