Prayer for the Land
Performed to highlight what will be lost if the Digital Gateway is approved by the Prince William County Board of Supervisors on November 1st.
Prayer for the Land – 10/22/2022 – Jean Wright
Today, O Creator, as we remember and grieve, mourning the loss of habitat for our pollinators and other creatures, as we mourn the loss of countless species, we ask for forgiveness.
We confess our narcissism that places humans at the top of a pyramid, rather than in our rightful place in a co-creative, interconnected web of life; a web to which we give and from which we receive. A web of life that we are to steward. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear this truth of earthly life.
Listening God, hear our laments, our fear, yes, even our terrors about what is happening to your beautiful creation, the garden in which we live, move, and have our very being.
Each day we learn of developers wanting to build data centers, or reduce the size of protected national park areas; or gain permits to drill for gas and oil in protected areas of our oceans and land; of wanting to build in areas where the water, air, and soils will become contaminated and habitats forever lost. Forgive us we pray.
Forgive us our actions that contribute, in known and unknown ways, to Mother Earth’s anguish and suffering. She is groaning under the defilement by bulldozers, land movers, rock crushers, extractive industries, by drilling, and other weapons of destruction. Forgive us.
O Listener, Creator, Give us the strength to stand for your beautiful gift of creation. Give us the voice to shout “NO; NO MORE!” Give us the courage to stand in the gap, praying for these sacred acres of land.
Today, we stand in the gap between two national parks and the destruction of this land for the building of data centers.
We stand in the gap, O Creator, between a ripping apart of this land and its preservation.
We stand in the gap, O Justice Giver, between love amd exploitation, equity amd robbery, life amd death.
We stand in the gap between systems of injustice and systems of transformation, seeking inclusion of the voiceless in all circles of decision-making.
We stand in the gap, and speak for the fox, the deer, the maple, the oak, the grasses, the fungi, the birds, the Monarchs, the streams, and rivers. Hear our prayers we pray.
O Creator God, may our tears and anguish, lead us to once again reverence the earth, to acknowledge and respect the air, the waters, and soils from which life arose. May we call them, once again, mother, father, brother, sister for we truly are one, connected family.
Today, O Healer, open our eyes to see with new vision the precious garden in which we live. Empower us to mend that which we have broken. Let us value stewardship rather than dominion. Let us choose to nurture all life, visible and invisible, today and every day.
Now, O Compassionate One, may we go forth, as your stewards, tending to and protecting our One Earthly Home.
Amen. Shalom. Salaam.