Teach Us How to Dance the Dance of Hope: A Prayer
O Lord, was it really you,
was it really you,
you
doing the Electric Slide,
the Cupid Shuffle,
the macarena,
on the streets of this city and that city,
getting protesters and police
dancing together
a dance of hope,
and National Guardsmen too,
and young and old,
women and men,
black and white and Hispanic,
Asian and Native American?
For a moment,
protesters and police
not enemies,
seeing the truth of one another,
seekers of justice and servers of justice,
both wanting justice,
enough time elapsed
to see the goodness in each other,
the goodness
of the many
not the evil
of the few;
for a moment,
protesters and police,
young and old,
women and men,
black and white and Hispanic and Asian and Native
Americans
seeing each other
as fellow human beings,
sick to death
of death,
of violence,
of evil ignored,
desperately wanting a vision
of hope;
and for a moment,
there it was,
you,
you,
dancing,
doing the Electric Slide,
teaching how to dance the dance of hope.
O Lord, teach us
how to dance
that dance!
Teach us
to see your face in the faces of others,
to see each other as the fellow human beings we are,
to see the goodness in each other.
Teach us,
teach us again
how to be a neighbor,
how to be kind,
how to be a friend to all people.
Teach us
how to come together,
to link arms,
to embrace one another,
so that
there is hope
for us, for the children, for this land,
hope enough
to keep us dancing,
especially when
the sermons have been forgotten,
the famous have gone back to being famous,
people have gone back to their lives,
and politicians have gone back to doing
what they do best –
nothing,
at least nothing that matters much,
and the streets are quiet.
O Lord, grace us with courage enough to keep dancing the dance.
Courage enough
to face the prejudice
that still resides in the hearts
of every last one of us,
and the evil of hatred
that lurks within
as well,
and to let go
of the fears that drive us.
Courage enough
to be fools
for your sake;
to overcome evil
with love
(a moth-eaten word for sure,
but the only word
that will do);
to speak up, speak out, speak on
against
injustice
to do the right thing in the face of the wrong
we know is wrong
even though others
see no wrong at all.
Courage enough
not to allow our political opinions
to be more powerful
than our religious beliefs;
not to allow them
to deepen the divide
between ourselves and others,
to ruin friendships,
ruin relationships,
ruin any chance of coming together
as your people;
and not to give
more loyalty to human leaders
than to you
and more time and energy
to following what is said on Facebook
than to listening to what you say to us in Christ;
to be Christian
in a land in which Christians seem to be hardly
Christian at all.
And something else, O Lord, something else we must pray.
As businesses and bistros and beaches
open up
and signs of recovery are seen,
we pray
that we will not ignore
the hard reality
that the coronavirus is still with us,
working its deadly way among us.
And so give us the good sense
to keep doing
what anyone with any sense
knows we should.
And continue to heal and strengthen and comfort
those who have contracted the virus,
those who are at risk caring for them,
those who mourn the loss of someone to the virus.
O Lord, was it really you,
really you,
you,
dancing,
doing the Electric Slide?
Move us
to take your hand
and keep dancing the dance of hope
until at last
we and our land are
changed
and the dance we dance
erupts
into a dance
of joy
unimagineable!