This is a prayer for us.

We are coming apart. Who can help?

I have never offered a prayer in public like this before.

It took years for me to even acknowledge my faith outside the context of church or family or close friends. It always feels like a risk.

But the bigger risk right now is being inauthentic about what’s happening for me as a leader: I am disoriented. Cruelty and shameless dishonesty are now firmly established as public policy in the United States, and the casualties are mounting. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, dislocated families, orphaned and abandoned children, antisemitic violence, open white supremacy — all of it mainstreaming, all of a piece.

Like many of you, I know that I’ve been called to be a leader in times like this…but how and to where? I’m honestly not sure.

Prayer is my only answer right now. Rather than write a dissociated post about my usual topics — marketing strategy, innovation, the food system, as though any of them are top-of-mind for me in this moment — I offer this prayer instead, hoping that it helps us all.

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Almighty God,

By Your grace and guidance, many of us have been called to lead, and yet we do not know what to do.

Our neighbors, whom You commanded us to love, are at one another’s throats. Blood now runs in the streets, and the injustice of it calls out to You as it pools.

Sorrow, anger, fear, confusion, hatred, exhaustion: they overwhelm us. Discernment has slipped through the cracks in our character, and we do not know what to do.

And yet there are some things that we do know.

We know that when we are disoriented, when we don’t have the answer and don’t even know the right question, You promised to step into the gap.

We know that You challenged us to humble ourselves enough to act justly and show mercy.

We know that You commanded us, over and over again, to care for the foreigners and powerless among us, even directing us to save a portion of our abundance expressly for them.

We know that, when Your Spirit moved, Your followers were suddenly fluent in every foreign language so that their capacity for transferring Your love, goodness and mercy was unconstrained by nationality or ethnicity.

So we, as leaders, ask You to fill the void in our confidence. Remind us of what You’ve taught. Show us the next step that You’ve planned for us. Help us to steer the nation that we love away from this seductively cruel darkness.

Amen

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For those who want the Biblical references that helped shape this prayer, I offer them here:

The commandment to love our neighbor – Matthew 22:37-40

Abel’s unjustly spilled blood calling out to Yahweh – Genesis 4:10

The Holy Spirit’s role when we don’t know what to say – Romans 8:26

The call for humility, justice and mercy – Micah 6:8

The call to care for foreigners and the powerless – Deuteronomy 24:17-22, Psalm 146:9, Luke 10:30-37, Mark 5:25-34

The gift of foreign language at Pentecost – Acts 2:1-12