RBG Prayer by Rev. Debra McKnight

God of Justice,

Ruth, Your sacred soul has died. And we are hurt and grieving, wounded and worried.
Ruth, Your beloved, lives in our memory and yet we long for more.  
Ruth, Your defiance in the face of sexism and dissent in the face of misogyny,
Ruth the great defense of our most vulnerable bodies and our tender democracy.

Anger and fear are feathering their nest,
    making themselves at home in our hearts,
        despair is making itself at home as the choices of the horizon call for action.

The choice, we fear, rests in the hands of the Ruth-less,
    unmoored from morality and friends with hypocrisy,
those who seek to control the choice and voice, body and vote of others
those who long for an America that was great for very few.

Our anger rises. We wonder, “Is there any honor left among us?”
We fear the truths about to be laid bare.  

And yet you bid us. You call us to take heart, still our nerve,
to join the march, be the company that pulls the long ark of history towards justice
and makes all things new.

You bid us to decent with every breath and vote,
You call us to justice with every pulse and step,
You remind us of the one who turned over the money changers tables
and laid the heartless the bureaucracy bare.

You send us prophets of dreams and decent
of wisdom and voice,
of courage in every size and shape and color and creed.

And so we will grieve and we will curse
and we will follow your call.
We will grow through the pain of this moment
to a more perfect union and your all loving dream.

And we will shoo the little whispers of fear and self doubt,
we will send despair packing and transform anger into righteous rage.

We will do what must be done,
to make earth as it is in heaven.

We will do what must be done,
with every breath and vote,
with every pulse and step
to let justice roll down like waters
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  

May we have the courage.
Amen.

-Rev. Debra McKnight