Category: Reflections
We Repent
Lenten Blog Series
A Lenten Reflection from Dr. Sheryl Stewart, Central Seminary Director of Language Development and Curriculum Implementation
In this season that Jesus took on the pain of humanity, it is appropriate that we take some time to sit with pain, embodying the pain of the evil that has been allowed to grow in our country: greed, corruption, scape-goating, fearmongering, callous disregard of human need and suffering– not just recent events, but our history that is replete with all these and more–disinvestment in human capital allowing hunger and bare survival, constant war, spewing of toxins into air and water.
We repent of apathy
We repent of compassion fatigue
We repent of forgetting
We repent of smallness to which we retreat
We repent
We relinquish entitlement
We relinquish separateness and self-protection
We relinquish arrogance
We relinquish
We ask for forgiveness and mercy
Heal us, O God.
Heal our brokenness.
Heal our nation.
Heal our world.
We pray that we will find the courage to care for our hearts, to acknowledge the aching sadness that resides there even without our permission, to open again to sensitivity, to find ways to place human suffering squarely in the forefront of our vision even when feelings can’t keep up, and to have the courage to act.