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Trump Wanted Prayers for America. So Let’s Pray
Trump Wanted Prayers for America. So Let’s Pray
What is your prayer for our nation as it celebrates 250 years? Here’s a place to start.
HOW CAN WE PRAY, with honesty and humility, for the United States of America? We asked ministers, writers, activists, and faith leaders to write prayers for our nation. Some have roots in this land that run deeper than the Declaration of Independence, others are more recent additions to the American tapestry. With words of confession, thanksgiving, and supplication, they wrote from their hearts. Some prayers ring with hope, others carry the weight of years of harm to the land and people. But all these prayers are written with love, a love willing to tell the truth, even when it hurts; a love that never fails. This is the truest form of patriotism. This is what it means to seek the peace and welfare of the land in which God has placed us (Jeremiah 29:7).
May you find in these words the power of remembrance in a culture of intentional forgetting, encouragement amid despair, and joyful connection with our Creator and with all creation beyond national boundaries.
As you read these words, what is your prayer for our nation? Email us at [email protected].
—The Editors
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Julia Alvarez is the author of novels, poetry, and essays. Her latest book is Visitations, a collection of poems. She lives in Vermont.
Dr. Randy Woodley is author of Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (Eerdmans); his podcast, Peacing It All Together, can be found at peacingitalltogether.com. Dr. Woodley and his wife, Edith, operate Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm near Portland, Ore., where he is distinguished professor of faith and culture at Portland Seminary.
Simran Jeet Singh is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary and senior religion fellow for the Sikh Coalition. He is also the host for Spirited, a new interview-based podcast on faith, spirituality, and activism.
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann is the author of The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World and This Sweet Earth: Walking with Our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse. She lives in Pennsylvania.
Isaac S. Villegas is pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship and president of the governing board of the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Julian Davis Reid is a Chicago-based artist-theologian and the founder of Notes of Rest, a spiritual formation ministry grounded in scripture and Black music that invites the body of Christ to receive God’s gift of rest.
Danya Ruttenberg is a rabbi and author of Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, and six other books.
Kat Armas is a Cuban American author, speaker, and theologian. She is the author of Abuelita Faith, Sacred Belonging, and her most recent book, Liturgies for Resisting Empire.
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