As the world writhes amid natural disaster and conflict, you may feel like I do at times — rather helpless. Coping is the first step to making a difference, small or large. And prayer, even secular prayer, is a powerful outlet for your voice and your empathy. I offer you this metta prayer, a traditionally Eastern spiritual concept, of offering made in loving-kindness for all people.
Earth, my Mother, my beloved provider, my bountiful home of one million colors and countless souls; layer upon layer of art and sentience; conscientious design intermingling with the chaos of choice, and will, and destiny —
I love you.
Is it too much for me to ask you to bear your wounds?
To endure beyond what you’re already enduring?
How much have you not yet endured?
Who am I to ask you to endure it further?
I must ask you all the same, and I speak this prayer for your healing.
I will do what I can to heal you; what I can to heal with you, through you, in you.
Receive the sorrow and grief of your beloved children. Absorb our tears like an upward rain. May they, the shadows of our caring, nourish you and your skies, who endlessly provide, and ask for nothing in return. Transmute our longing into blessings. Shower the world over again in your loving care.
Drench the vengeful fires of those wounded and those lost who long for your loving embrace.
May all open hands who plead for morsels be found by reaching hands who bear even more than material plenty: the indomitable wealth of compassion.
Govern our world, our home, this one house we know and all our family within it, with eternal patience, empathy, and enough resolve to see through what we are able.
To you I pray,
Amen.
P.S. — If you can afford to do so, please join me in making a small donation in support of natural disaster relief through the American Red Cross, or your preferred charity. A little can go a long way. Thank you.