Let Us Pray… Again
The following is a prayer that Roger Fuchs wrote to use in a prayer service he conducts weekly. It is, I think, the most fitting prayer of all in response to yet another mass shooting:
Let us pray:
Dear God of creation, compassion and redemption,
Henceforth,
May all firing pins fail, and may all cartridge primers become inert.
May smokeless powder turn to glass, and may bullets melt as butter.
May bolts weld themselves solid in receivers,
and may barrels bend in the middle to turn on those who aim them.
May triggers fracture at the pivot,
may magazines split at seams to spill
their satanic contents on the feet of those who load them.
May stocks and grips succumb to spontaneous combustion,
may they sear the hands of all who would hold them.
May sights and scopes become blind to human vision,
May gravity multiply the weight of every weapon to exceed
the strength of any human or machine.
Protect us, Christ our Savior, from the profanity of prayers by the powerful
pledged and wedded to inertness, inaction and denial.
In other words, Dear God, save us from ourselves
and all false gods of every caliber and bore.
Next time, Dear God, a thousand times, please take me first.
Never the children.
Never again the children.
Never again.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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