In Heaviness, We Hold The Light
a prayer from glory happening
Friends,
Today marks a heavy day in history as we remember 9/11. It’s gloomy here, and I look outside and notice the sullenness that hovers over and in me.
Holding hope amidst weariness is the mark of being human, it seems.
Holding weariness and joy at the same time is difficult.
Holding space for ritual and care is essential.
When we think about heaviness and grief, we think about the stories that come with our humanness, too.
The world has been marked by tragedy again and again. Our tragedy didn’t end with 9/11, but brought a wave of hate crimes across America since.
Author and activist Saira Rao shares on Instagram:
In addition to the nearly three thousand innocent people who tragically were murdered that day, September 11 set in motion what would be the murder of so many innocent Black and brown people, an entire Cabinet position - the Department of Homeland Security - dedicated to tormenting, torturing and criminalizing Black and brown folks.
Afghanistan.
Iraq.
A wave of Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia that continues to metastasize with concomitant gun violence at home and global genocide of Black and brown bodies abroad.
So as we mourn the innocent lives lost on this day, let us also mourn the many innocent lives lost since to racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia.
It didn’t have to be this way.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
So we remember, we grieve, we hold hope for justice and commitment to resistance.
And as we live through these days, I leave this prayer with us from my first book, Glory Happening.
I wrote this prayer to remember that it’s okay to be human in the pain, and it’s okay to weep and wail and show up to a Creator, God, Mystery, who holds it all with us.
From Glory Happening (slightly edited for more universal language):
Oh Sacred Healer, A world of pain surrounds us-- open wounds and raised scars, shortness of breath. Children cannot be children and parents lose their steps and we all fall, fall, fall. Death takes our heartbeats and flings open the floodgates of "we should have" and "I never forgave..." We are struck in the kneeling position, because nothing else makes sense and words can't even fail because they weren't there in the first place. Our grief is a blanket around us, and we cannot uncloak ourselves. We mock each other's grief and lose ourselves in our wildernesses, and we are undone. Humanity beckons for you. Lean nearer. Lean nearer and hear with the deepest part of your love. Answer us with the presence of your flesh, as tangibly as you can hold us with air and space and spirit and wholeness. We light the candles and the flames throw themselves in our hearts, and we sit in holy remembrance of all that's been, in holy hope of all that will be. We ache. Relieve us, we pray. Iw, amen.
Please join me September 18-25th for a week of poetry prompts called Readying for Autumn. Each day you’ll receive a quote or word on Autumn along with a question or prompt and an original poem from me.
This will be a beautiful, communal way to enter into the coming season, and because this is for paid subscribers only, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber to join us. Mark your calendar! Grab your journals! And let’s celebrate together.
Thank you for your poem and the thoughtful memorial to those lost, not only in the attack on the day, but the way people were attacked for years afterward.
Beautiful poem. Thank you.