Healing Prayers & Meditations to Resist A Violent World
by Dennae Pierre
In 2020, I wrote Healing Prayers to Resist a Violent World as an attempt to invite others to envision, repent, heal, and experience deeper communion with God and others in the midst of a broken, yet beautiful world. You can read some of the prayers, enjoy some of the artwork contained in the prayer book, or purchase a copy.
Over the years, I have belonged to various socio-economically and ethnically diverse communities desiring to live into reconciliation while pursuing justice and peace in our cities. It has been beautiful and painful, relationally rich and devastating, momentous and ordinary, costly and priceless. Together we have encountered individual and communal suffering, desiring to see light break into the darkness that lurk in the shadows of individuals, families, systems, structures, and institutions. We want our communities to flourish and experience wholeness. We share a conviction that followers of Jesus are called to be a faithful witness to God’s kingdom—most especially in places where the shadows of hell appear most visible on earth.
It is not enough to describe the brokenness of the world. It is not enough to speak against injustice. It is not enough to resist evil. If we are to truly see peace, justice, and reconciliation embodied by God’s people, we must awaken to the reality of our union with Jesus, and because of that, our intimate and holy connection to one another. If we can begin to envision and even experience what is waiting on the other side of seeking justice and righteousness, we will not only resist evil, but our motivation to do so will come from experiencing union and deep communion with God, others, and self.
Our fractured selves cannot remain present in our own suffering—let alone the suffering of others—without an immense amount of exhaustion. Eventually, we burn out; eventually, we hurt those around us through self-righteousness, pride, and anger; or eventually, we give up and comply with the way things are—unless we take an alternative path. This alternative path invites us to remain present in suffering and resist injustice through our union with Christ and one another. Being awake to the reality of our union awakens an ache for restored relationships with all mankind.
This ache touches on the deepest parts of who we are—our desires, longings, and most significant needs. It uncovers the parts of us that need God’s healing touch and exposes the parts of our story that are still in need of God’s truth. If we are to engage in God’s work with a posture that looks like Jesus, then we need healing in the deepest parts of us. Some of this healing is mysterious, personal, and done in secret between us and God, but not most of it. God more often chooses to heal us by dispensing his infinite love through people. Inspiring us to lavish one another with this divine love. We experience healing as we are seen and see one another through the eyes of Christ.
Table of Contents
INVITATION
Beloved Communion
Kingdom Vision
Can the Wealthy Follow Jesus?
Beauty
Sacred Union
Unity is Solidarity
Repentance
REPENTANCE AND LAMENTS
Jeremiah 5
Distractions of the Middle Class
Veils
Too Small a World
Plague
Do You love your White Family?
George Floyd
Hoarding Power
Lost Love
Black and Brown Solidarity
Preparing the Bold to Speak Truth to Power
Preparing the Timid to Speak Truth to Power
In Pandemic, the Church Needs Mothers
Confessing Contradictions
Forgive us for being a Disappointing Community
A Confession for Brothers and Sisters
When Pastors Abuse Their Power
HEALING JOURNEYS
Tender Strength
Story
Loneliness
Introductions
Father’s Day
Victimhood
Baptism
Prodigal Fathers
Discovery