When discussing the Book of Job I often describe it - and through it scripture and liturgy more generally - as offering us words for the times when we have no words. So I'm grateful for the letter of the Episcopal Bishops of New York responding to the attack on the U. S. Capitol incited by the president, "Pray for the state our our country." A taste:
President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will come into office with the herculean task of uniting a fractured and violent nation, and restoring the honor of the presidency. Every person of good will must rise to support them and help in that effort. Those who carried out this act of shame have promised more, and more violent, actions to come. This country is not out of danger, and the future of our republic and common life are profoundly uncertain. Perhaps our biggest fear is that some essential thread which has bound us together in the past has now been cut, and that we may now devolve into chaos.
As Christians, we are people for whom reconciliation is not simply another virtue, but is the foundation of our life and who we are....
But this is also admitting that I am at a loss for words of my own for what's happened and happening. I have no idea what reconciliation could be here, and hear those on "my side" who angrily reject the idea that people so gullible or craven or hostile to the reality of American diversity deserve to be engaged at all, especially in the face of their enduring support of the president's and his party's sustained assault on the very structures of our democracy. But I also cannot imagine abandoning reconciliation as the horizon of our shared life. The bishops append some prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. It consoles me to have words such as these to intone - and that they're there already:
Oh God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your son. Look now with compassion on the entire human family; and particularly this part of the family, in the United States, and those in our nation’s capital; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; ...
For the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, p. 815
