Sunday Poem #12: Prayer of the Mothers / Current Events

A prayer for peace by Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum and Sheikha Ibtisam Mahamid + a poem for the good worth fighting for.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

I just got back from a trip to Nashville and Charlotte. I want to tell you about my travels, about time with old and new friends, and poetry readings and beautiful things. But not right now. While I was traveling and mostly offline, I caught passing glimpses of the news about the horrific violence between Gaza and Israel. War, again, brewing a world away. Children, mothers, fathers, grandparents caught in the crossfire.

To be honest, it’s hard to know when to speak, or how. There is so much to grieve in this world. It’s especially hard to know what to say as a white American Christian watching it all unfold. But I do know this: many things can be true at the same time. There is no justification for violence against innocents, and cycles of oppression only beget more and more destruction.

So I’ll do what I know how to do and send you a later than usual Sunday poem. (It’s just barely still Monday.) Two, actually. The first is is one I’ve come across several times, most recently through Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Life is a Sacred Text. It’s a prayer for peace by Jewish and Palestinian authors who are doing the hard work of reconciliation.¹ The words of these women give me hope.

The second is one of mine, a small celebration of the things that keep us safe in a burning world. I read it out loud twice this past week: once at a Hutchmoot Poetry Open Mic, and again around a fire with friends back home in New England. Maybe I keep returning to it because I need to remind myself that there’s good out there worth fighting for.

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Prayer of the Mothers
By Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum and Sheikha Ibtisam Mahamid 
Translated by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

God of Life

Who heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds

May it be your will to hear the prayer of mothers.

For you did not create us to kill each other

Nor to live in fear, anger or hatred in your world

But rather you have created us so we can grant permission to one another

to sanctify Your name of Life, your name of Peace in this world.

For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water

For our children crying at nights,

For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts

For a gate that is closing and who will open it while day has not yet dawned.

And with my tears and prayers which I pray

And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these difficult days I raise my hands to you

please God have mercy on us

Hear our voice that we shall not despair

That we shall see life in each other,

That we shall have mercy for each other,

That we shall have pity on each other,

That we shall hope for each other

And we shall write our lives in the book of Life

For your sake God of Life

Let us choose Life.

For you are Peace, your world is Peace and all that is yours is Peace

And so shall be your will and let us say Amen.

Current Events

So maybe it’s true.
Maybe the world burns.
But in other news,
I stopped for coffee on
a foggy day, then went
to the chiropractor to
get my spine realigned.

Later we replaced the
broken-hinged toilet seat
(“I bet you didn’t plan
to spend your Tuesday
between the wall and
a toilet bowl,” I joke,
holding pliers to bolt.)

After that, we make
quesadillas, watch a show,
turn in by ten, reading
by burning lamplight.
Maybe the world burns too,
and nothing is guaranteed.
but still, it is so good

to be here.

1. Shared under Creative Common License. Learn more about the authors (and see the poem in its original Hebrew and Arabic) here.