Posts Tagged ‘kids’

 

One-by-One: A Prayer as the COVID Death Toll Mounts

Posted on: May 27th, 2020 by Alden

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is approaching 100,000, as the world-wide death toll surpasses 350,000. This prayer was written at the request of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in an effort to remember and mourn those lost hearts and souls as the U.S. marks this sad milestone.

ADDENDUM: As of February 17, 2021, the U.S. death toll surpassed 500,000 and total deaths world-wide are nearing 2.5 million people.

One-by-One: A Prayer as the COVID Death Toll Mounts
God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the COVID pandemic,
As the ones become tens,
The tens become hundreds,
The hundreds become thousands,
The thousands become ten-thousands
And then hundred-thousands,
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.

God of wisdom,
Surely in the halls of divine justice
You are assembling the courts,
Calling witnesses to testify,
To proclaim
The compassion of some
And the callousness of others
As we’ve struggled to cope.
The souls taken too soon,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn’t need to die,
Who died alone,
Will tell their stories
When You judge
Our triumphs
And our failures
In these hours of need.

God of healing,
Put an end to this pandemic,
And all illness and disease.
Bless those who stand in service to humanity.
Bless those who grieve.
Bless the dead,
So that their souls are bound up in the bond of life eternal.
And grant those still afflicted
With disease or trauma
A completed and lasting healing,
One-by-one,
Until suffering ceases,
And we can stop counting the dead,
In heaven
And on earth.

© 2020 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com

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Postscript: My other coronavirus prayers are: “Sheltering in Place,” “On the Front Lines of the Pandemic,” “Healing from Coronavirus“, “Coronavirus: A Prayer for Medical Scientists” and “Traveler’s Prayer in a Time of Pandemic.”

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and my two CCAR Press books: This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: The New York Times, May 24, 2020

Sheltering in Place

Posted on: March 29th, 2020 by Alden

In this strange and uncertain new era of COVID-19, here’s a prayer of gratitude and hope for our time sheltering in place. May we all know health and safety.

Sheltering in Place
May it be Your will,
G-d of our fathers and mothers,
That our sheltering in place
Be for health and healing,
Longevity and life,
Sustenance, renewal and love.
Let our best selves shine forth
In these moments of uncertainty,
These moments of unfamiliar distances,
These moments that may yield stress or conflict,
Confusion or despair.
Let peace arise inside us.
Let kindness flow between us.
Let deliverance rise up from heaven,
And let health and goodwill radiate throughout the world
As a river of blessings.

© 2020 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com.

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: My other coronavirus prayers are: “On the Front Lines of the Pandemic,” “Healing from Coronavirus“, “Coronavirus: A Prayer for Medical Scientists” and “Traveler’s Prayer in a Time of Pandemic.”

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and my two CCAR Press books: This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

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