Sometimes it all seems like too much. (A prayer for the grieving and overwhelmed.)
I've been trying to come up with something useful to say, this week, this month, this season. I thought maybe I'd found some words, inspired by a prayer I was given recently. But as it turns out, there's just nothing to say after this prayer has been said.
And so I offer you the gem of this heartfelt prayer of grief by Ted Lodor, from the amazing book "Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle". May you be well.

Sometimes It Just Seems to be Too Much
Sometimes, Lord,
it just seems to be too much:
too much violence, too much fear;
too much of demands and problems
too much of broken dreams and broken lives;
too much of war and slums and dying
too much of greed and squishy fatness
and the sounds of people
devouring each other
and the earth;
too much of stale routines and quarrels,
unpaid bills and dead ends;
too much of words lobbed in to explode
and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
too much of turned-away backs and yellow silence,
red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.
Sometimes the very air seems scorched
by threats and rejection and decay
until there is nothing
but to inhale pain
and exhale confusion
Too much of darkenss, Lord,
too much of cruelty
and selfishness
and indifference...
Too much, Lord,
too much,
too bloody,
bruising,
brain-washing much.
Or is it too little,
too little of compassion
too little of courage,
of daring
of persistence,
of sacrifice;
too little of music
and laughter
and celebration?
O God,
make of me some nourishment
for these starved times,
some food
for my brothers and sisters
who are hungry for gladness and hope,
that, being bread for them,
I may also be fed
and be full.
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