Open Our Hearts With Love

When the world’s violence shatters the joy of a moment
We pause and reach out for the hands that remain

We open our hearts with love.

When despair rises as a monster from the deep and drags down one of our own, our answer is that

We open our hearts with love.

When hatred and anger rage in fire and suffering
We bend to pick up the wounded, to bind up ourselves and

We open our hearts with love.

When fear whispers "build more gates" "add more locks" "the blessed are those who defend themselves," we rock those fears to sleep and let them rest as

We open our hearts with love.

People will do unspeakably cruel and horrible things; we know this fact, we live and die this daily, all around the world, in every community and every wasteland. But we know the answer is found only with one action, and so

We open our hearts with love.

Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone can be healed. This is the truth we affirm. We live with courage and with a wider and wider circle of that force that bends our lives to ones of mercy, justice, and compassion.

We open our hearts with love.

It’s the truth: just by being born you are loved. There is something within you and every person that can be loved.

We open our hearts with love.

In love, we pray for those families, those individuals, all the persons here and everywhere who are desperately sure that there is not enough love in the world for them to have some, who are desperately sure that they do not matter. In love with life, in love with the Beloved, we turn to answer that desperation with assurance: you are loved, you are loveable, we will and do love you. Now, attend to your life’s work: to love. It’s the only legacy that matters.

Amen.