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.