Joyce's Prayer

Joyce stood to speak out of the silence of our Quaker meeting this morning.

Her words shook the stillness.

“How do we pray for an entire body of water?” she asked in a strong yet sad voice.

A collective sigh met her determined words.

Her query spread like the oil slick itself.

How do we pray for the endangered and dying creatures? she asked in deliberate, measured cadence.

We would pray for the birds and reptiles and other critters in the reeds and marshes.

How do we pray for the Mississippi Delta and the fragile coastal lands in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi?

And we long to pray for the already hurricane-ravaged Louisiana.

And what of the people whose livelihoods have been destroyed?

And in the Gulf of Mexico, what of the suffocating creatures of the deep? How do we pray for fish and crustaceans?

We pray for an entire eco-system, she said.

“And we ask forgiveness.”

“And we pray for healing.”

With that, she sat down to the prayer-filled, somber silence of Friends.