In Memory of Taylor Force

Taylor Force, who was visiting from the United States, was a five minute walk from our home when another young man, a Palestinian from the West Bank, murdered him. His wife was one of nine other people – Jews, Arabs and tourists – wounded in the attack.

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Lord, You're all we have left.

Look down. Look now. Where this very morning we passed at a run, marveling at the beauty of the new day, where just at noon children skipped and new parents wheeled strollers, now, tonight, there is a slick of blood the size and shape of a human being.

Look down. Those who pretend to lead us, cannot keep our children safe.

Your children.

Merciful One, who makes hearts for a living, who causes them to beat, who builds into them the capacity for compassion and the option of change, you're all we have.

Unknowable One, who makes newborns for a living, cause us to feel what a newborn causes us to rediscover – that we are human first, human through, before we divide into our instinctive categories of enemies.

Unconquerable One, do unto our hearts what infants do. Break our hearts. Melt them. Open them. Open them to the place where every human being – no matter what color, faith, politics, or mother tongue – knows with every cell in their body what truly matters in life.

Send a cure for this heart disease of ours.

Forgive us for failing You. Forgive us the pride we take in hating the other side, and in hating those on our side with whom we disagree. Forgive us the ease with which we ignore murderers, or make them into heroes.

For all that we condemn traitors to our cause, forgive us every one for betraying Your cause, which is peace.

Merciful One, every one of our souls is afflicted, possessed. Bless the beloved of our souls. Bless Your children. Keep them safe. Cure us, Lord. Shock us from our madness.

Free us from the belief that we alone are right, and deserving of rights, and that the other side is mistaken, misplaced, and deserving of exile.

Put an end to the belief that You want Your children to murder and be murdered in Your name.

Free us, all of us, from the river to the sea.