Prayer for Freedom                             Rev. Douglas Taylor                       3-23-25

Gracious and Loving God,
From Whom all things come and to Whom all things return

We give thanks this morning for the opportunity to again gather together as a people of faith in search of meaning and grace and a path toward justice.

Some of us here today have barely made it through the week. Life has been hard and we need the presence and prayers of good people and of thee to sustain us on our journeys.
Some of us here today have arrive excited and curious, looking for new ideas and new opportunities to connect and to build something good and beautiful.
Some of us here today have heavy hearts for the suffer happening just beyond our front doors, for the poor, the immigrant, the incarcerated, the unhoused, the disenfranchised and disempowered.

We gather this morning as Unitarian Universalists seeking freedom and liberation for ourselves and for all people. We gather to be co-creators of a sacred space together guided by the deep values of our faith.
We recognize that a faith like ours needs to be enacted, it needs to be lived in action.
We know that freedom for one of us needs the freedom of all of us; that the freedom of our faith community needs the freedom of all the faith communities

We hear our own cries for relief amid our struggles are mingled and blended with the cries of immigrants like those who build this city years ago, and the immigrants who continue to show up today. It is the same cry from people incarcerated & dying in our county jail. It is the same cry from our transgender siblings and from people of color and from the poor and from all those abused and marginalized in our society today.

Hear our cries, oh God, be with us in our difficulties.
Help us to find the courage to face the continuing injustices of our days.
Help us to reach out from our own heartache and become partners in the transformation of our world.
Help us to know, despite the messy complexity of life, that we do not struggle alone, that liberation is possible, and that hope is a powerful response in the face of what seems impossible.

Be thou an ever-present strength on the journey, O God.
In the name of all that is holy,
May it be so.