Gracious and loving Creator, as we recoil from the many acts of violence perpetrated each day, give us renewed hope in our ability to mend the brokenness of our world, because in the words of Denise Levertov’s poem, “Beginners”:
…we have only begun to love the Earth.
We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?—so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?—we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision how it might be to live as siblings with [each other], not as oppressors...
There is too much broken that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know the power that is in us
if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.—AMEN.
(“Beginners” in Candles in Babylon by Denise Levertov)
