How do we pray in difficult times?

Finding words in the midst of all the groans

Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash

I don’t want to overload your email but there’s a stirring question in me today.

How do we find words when we groan inside with all the hard news?

How do we pray when there are no words?

The world is in such a mess.

I can say that.

What do we do when we feel powerless?

Is my silence a cop-out?

Is this solitude an escape?

Will there ever be this thing called “peace on Earth and goodwill to all?”

I can say, I want peace. I want goodwill. I really do.

Perhaps, the best I can say is this:

Lord, have mercy!

That is enough.

It’s all I can say right now.

Amen and Amen.

It’s a very foggy, fall morning here in Brevard, North Carolina. I sit here in my sunroom, glassed office and there is no sun but gloom and gray. We watched the news last night. Was it a mistake? How can I not be a witness to the plight of millions? I cannot act as if the world is not in trouble, when it is.

So, I wrote this poem just now. I’m sharing it with all of you.

This Slippery Conundrum

by Stephen W. Smith

The fog is thick with wet and gray.
A cold, mountain cloud surrounds me here in a tomb.
I cannot see. I know nothing further than this damn fog.
It is no thin place for sure, it seems.

The whole word is in this fog and on this edge now.
Wailing in the streets of Gaza, Jerusalem, Kyiv and my heart too.
Heavy with the dark clouds of grief everywhere it seems.
This fog will not burn off. Not yet, it seems.

How can I be content amidst so much lament?
How do I carry all this mess?
My questions not new.
Recorded in parchment among the Psalms. Again, here on my keyboard.

This slippery conundrum to hold called ,life.
Birthdays one day; funerals the next.
One day the candle is lit for an anniversary.
Today, it is lit for me to remember those in peril.

How do I hold this tension?
How does this song sparrow still sing in such gray fog?
For whom is the red cana lily blooming to see its glory?
For now, I wait and waiting is hard.