I have just returned from today's church service where the celebrant injected a request a cappella into the Prayers of the Faithful asking that "our nation be protected from our enemies." This particular celebrant has added this request on more than one occasion, so I will not excuse the wording by attributing it to composing on-the-fly. I would like to suggest an alternative format for future Prayers of the Faithful. Let us beseech the Lord of All "that we as a nation be reconciled with those whom we identify as enemy and who identify us as enemy."

Here are two links to articles that I found on-line this morning. The first was read before heading out the door to church; the second was read afterwards over a third or fourth cup of coffee warmed up in the microwave. Needles to say that these reads moved me more than today's church service--moved in a way that is appropriate on a Sunday morning.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/aug/24/secondworldwar.broadcasting

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/world/europe/behind-flurry-of-killing-potency-of-hate.html?hp&_r=0

The articles speak to the complexity of human nature and the ways in which we organize and think about ourselves. Is it too much to ask that our religious ministers challenge the best that can be found in our nature and not concede to an uneasy peace of mutually assured destruction, which is a false security and a non-peace? Praying for protection from one's enemies is nothing more than asking for success in an arms race or victory on today's battlefield. We are fools to ask for so little; it is a crime against our humanity and the humanity of all to settle for so little.