In Times of Crisis

In Times of Crisis

I lie, half awake, half asleep, half watching, half listening
to the television’s Saturday morning accounting
of weather, traffic, and other minutiae of the day,
when I am startled out of my reverie
by streaking, pulsating orbs and vapor trails
like I have never seen before.

I hear the newscaster say that contact
with the Columbia has just been lost,
and I instantly utter a call to the One Who Holds Us All.
My “Oh, my God” seems to be my life’s stabilizing force
whenever events too horrendous to contemplate happen.

My mind flashes back to catastrophes,
to gut-wrenching times in the past
when all I could do was to utter other, “Oh, my God’s,”
and I remember the Challenger’s Y-shaped vapor trail,
Kennedy, King, and Malcolm X assassinations,
National Guard troops standing in front of my neighborhood High’s Store
with rifles bayoneted, tanks in the streets of Washington, DC,
and making my way home through smoke and flames and teargas.

Then I remember other life-changing moments:
the daily body counts from the war in Viet Nam,
planes crashing into the World Trade Center, a man hurtling through space,
his leg making a figure four, his hand still clasping his briefcase,
the Pentagon in flames, a vaporized plane in a Pennsylvania field.
I recall children killing children and the cottage industry
of funeral teeshirts saying, RIP with a child’s vital statistics listed along with a name.

And I am forced to wonder why we cannot hold in reverence
all life on the planet, forced to question
why we cannot teach peace instead of studying war,
forced to think how hypocritical we are to mourn
the lives of seven while, at the same time,
planning the annihilation of thousands.

I am perplexed and saddened as I call forth again a prayer

Oh, my God, Maker and Ruler of us all,
show us the way toward humanity and peace;
lead us away from violence and the carnage
of war and crime and hatreds allowed to fester for centuries.
Make me a person who practices peace, shows love, respects all life,
and leaves the understanding of crises to You, who understands when we cannot.
Amen.

2/1/03