{"id":157964,"date":"2020-04-13T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T11:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=157964"},"modified":"2020-04-13T09:57:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T08:57:17","slug":"a-prayer-in-the-time-of-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/04\/a-prayer-in-the-time-of-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer in the Time of Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 Apr 2020 –\u00a0<\/em>Affirming spirituality as the power over life and death I aspire to achieve<\/p>\n

this spirituality that is nothing other than the blending of love and mystery<\/p>\n

cherishing wonder at a precarious precipice, respecting knowledge<\/p>\n

prayer seemed a weakening of spirit, a reaching out to the void, pretending<\/p>\n

that there was someone there ready to respond, a metaphysical crutch in times of need<\/p>\n

evading the loneliness of being when that other in our dreams is silent when and if we awake<\/p>\n

we need not, must not, give up hope against hope, as nadezdha mandelstam never did<\/p>\n

we need not, must not, cling to promises that can\u2019t be kept, pretending as paul did when<\/p>\n

praising abraham as he \u201cbelieved against hope in hope\u201d taking the greatest risk<\/p>\n

put more simply, still falsely, in hebrews 11:1-\u201cNow faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things<\/p>\n

not seen,\u201d the assurance invented to banish uncertainty burglarizes<\/p>\n

truth, demeaning faith as mere submission to authority, as refusal to live life fully, as refusal of the enchantments of<\/p>\n

uncertainty, instead of continuing up mountains to heights where justice dwells, climbing as the air thins, sustained by<\/p>\n

love by starlight truly certain and real<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yet we can lean to see and understand anew, pushed by the crisis of the earth to open eyes more widely, prayer will be<\/p>\n

loosened from moorings of church and state, only then becoming truly sacred: so realized, prayer becomes fervent<\/p>\n

hope, not needing to be uttered as if a cry of desperation no longer needing assurances or false promises, prayer<\/p>\n

becomes love and attentiveness a stone thrown from land far out falling beyond sight in an ocean of uncertainty<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yet not lacking courage to stare at bodies piling up in churches, morgues overflowing, funerals on hold, statistics<\/p>\n

replacing stories so that suffering stays abstract, leaders standing stiffly almost at a loss for words for the first time<\/p>\n

ever, yet uttering prime time moonshine language as addressing sheep, confusing optimism with hope, curbing<\/p>\n

science and scientists, treating misinformation, market-driven and gut-generated as knowledge, even wisdom<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yet we go on listening restlessly waiting for a few words exhibiting love uncertainty, losing patience with what we hear<\/p>\n

nightly we turn inward for knowledge for wisdom for love and outward for love for friendship invisible communities all<\/p>\n

over the planet bonded by these fervent hopes are gathering the strength to be ready for whatever comes tomorrow<\/p>\n

and stand by this prayer<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Richard Falk is a member of the\u00a0TRANSCEND Network<\/strong><\/a>, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University,\u00a0Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies,\u00a0UCSB,\u00a0author, co-author or editor of 60 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.\u00a0In 2008, the\u00a0United Nations Human Rights Council<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(UNHRC) appointed Falk to two three-year terms as a\u00a0United Nations Special Rapporteur <\/strong><\/a>on \u201cthe situation of human rights in the\u00a0Palestinian territories<\/strong><\/a> occupied since 1967.\u201d Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and associated with the local campus of the University of California, and for several years chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is\u00a0<\/em>On Nuclear Weapons, Denuclearization, Demilitarization, and Disarmament\u00a0(2019). <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 richardfalk.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Apr 2020 –\u00a0Affirming spirituality as the power over life and death I aspire to achieve
\nthis spirituality that is nothing other than the blending of love and mystery
\ncherishing wonder at a precarious precipice, respecting knowledge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":145696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1829,1868,1864],"class_list":["post-157964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}