I offered this prayer as the Invocation for the March 9, 2022, meeting of the Hawai’i County Council. I can’t claim this is the prayer exactly as I prayed it – I didn’t write it in advance – but this is certainly close.

E pule kakou. Let us pray.

O Holy One, we pray for peace today. We pray for peace in our minds and our spirits, because it is in that peace that wisdom and compassion emerge. We pray for peace in our homes, so that our community may find its foundation in love. And we pray for peace in the world, especially in those places where the peace is broken: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Tigray, Yemen, and other places where the violence is less but the grief is just as deep. We pray for peace, O God, in our world, in our community, in our homes, and in our hearts.

Amen.