Prayers and Borders
Borders and prayers we can do without.
Pray? To whom? For what?
A hurricane hit the coast of Mexico and spared Puerto
Vallarta because people prayed? Methinks the people in the mountains, the small
villages who were entirely wiped out or severely damaged, prayed fervently and
feverishly. I suspect their knees were more solidly affixed in front of altars
than those of the tourist town, busily boarding up windows and gathering
sandbags, where the storm passed over the target.
How many prayers have been said to bring back the 43? How
many parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, in Iguala and all around the
world, have prayed for a return… or even an answer?
You think there haven’t been prayers to bring the boats
ashore from Syria where dead babies wash up on beaches? Prayers for buried miners,
lost hikers, boats vanished at sea, newborns in NICU bassinets, Beirut, Israel,
Russia, Mumbai, the US, polar bears, orangutans, baby seals, confined whales? Make
your own list.
In Paris, bullets killed dozens while prayers of all kinds
were cried out. All kinds of prayers. Loud prayers. Silent prayers. Many, many prayers. Prayers for God; prayers for Allah.
François Hollande ordered borders closed.
Isn’t it a little late for that?
What we need to do is abolish borders. All borders. All kinds of borders.
Fences maybe, because fences make good neighbors, but fences
with gates, fences one can leap over with heart in hand. Welcome mats. Bells at
the door and flowers on the table. Fences to keep rabbits out, saving carrots
and young spring lettuce.
But no…
No Borders.
We can do without prayers and borders.
These are only words (as are prayers) and will be read by
few, but spread the feeling of no borders, if you will, of hearts in hands,
without prayers.
Thank you for reading.
.
