Often, prayer requires sitting still, with a passage of scripture, in silence allowing the meaning to enter our own lives and the life of the world, at this time.
Shortly we’ll read in churches about children being slaughtered in a revenge attack, their parents unable to protect them. One small family, the intended target, got away, through ancient Gaza, to an uncertain welcome in Egypt.
The powerful seemed to have won, at tremendous cost, to other, and their own humanity. Meanwhile, this family must have had help, from other parents; from the wealthy foreigners who were decoys; from unnamed others, like the rescuers, ambulance-drivers, medics, risking their lives in the current conflict in Gaza.Humans largely avoid the suffering of others, and the world’s current wars may appear far away, beyond our control. But the scriptural stories are as relevant in Britain’s former colony Sudan, in Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and if we take faith seriously, we are involved.
Only God can carry all the pain, but we are called to do something, send money, search for unbiased information, write to the powerful, use our bodies to call for ceasefires with others of goodwill, and enter deeper into God’s beloved, suffering world through prayer.
Prayer takes us beyond our narrow, self-focused lives. We sometimes find it informed by our own experience. The suffering of families in Israel, most of them, like Jesus, Jews; and of 10 times as many in Gaza, Palestinian Muslims and Christians; is too vast to comprehend, for each number represents a person known to God. I know many others are praying, while my mind focuses on the young dying alone under rubble. I came close to death myself aged 12 and this guides me to pray that each survives for the full life God intends.
I pray, too, that those who remain in conflicts to serve others when suffering themselves, when hope seems lost, show us a more God-centred way to live.
Rosemary Power.