Two people went to the church to pray. Both were me.
I took my position and spoke this prayer to myself, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of the people on my Facebook feed – selfish, uncaring, ignorant. I eat organic twice a week, and donate money to major disasters when they hit mainstream media. I support the right causes, tsk tsk at the right injustices, and vote for the right candidates.”
But the other part of me stood off to the side, and prayed, “I offer concern for my neighbors across the world that is rarely coupled with action. I mean to donate money to causes and often forget. I buy what I want when I want, often without regard to the impact it has on creation. I donate tin cans filled with slop I would never eat. I drive my car without thinking about whose sacred homeland the gas has been pumped across, and whose lungs are left to breathe the air. I grow angry at injustice, yet I do not know my neighbors’ names.
O God, have mercy on me, a human.”
Jackie Semmens 