A powerful litany

As we hope you know by now, many of us at FOR have been working on hard on a major event that will take place tomorrow in Washington, D.C. Rebirthing King, Rebirthing America will bring together a wide range of notable leaders from many faiths to shine a light on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King on the eve of the inauguration of the first Black President of the United States of America.

A major part of the program is "Ashes, Stones, & Flowers: A Litany on Militarism, Racism, & Materialism in Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." The verses of this litany are both eloquent and powerful. I was quite moved by reading it, and I’m usually not one for traditionally "religious" rituals, if you know what I mean.

The entire text is posted on the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership web site, but here is a taste…

For a nation that stood idle as its Black citizens were purged from voting lists and their homes were swept away by hurricanes,
We lift up the ashes of our remorse, O Forgiving One.

For abandoned inner cities in which the only living wage is the drug trade or prostitution and the only assurance of protection is thehandgun,
We lift up the ashes of our pain, O God.

For a nation that imprisons its citizens of color rather than educating them,
We lift up the ashes of our grief, O Freedom.

For a nation in which a death sentence is often determined by the color of the defendant’s skin,
We lift up the ashes of our shame, O Defender of Justice.

As we cast these ashes across the troubled killing fields of our times, Transforming One, hear our plea that they will make fertile the soil of our future and nourish the seeds of peace.

For our nation’s refusal to acknowledge the brutal history of the Middle Passage, of auction blocks, of brandings and burning crosses, of back country lynchings and inner city redlining,
We lift up the stones of our anger, O Karma-Bearer.

For a nation in which affirmative action is attacked but white privilege is protected,
We lift up the stones of our hardness, O Judge of All.

For a nation that sends racial minorities to its battlefields but bans them from its boardrooms,
We lift up the stones of our arrogance, O Reconciling One.

For a nation that uses immigrants to clean its houses and pick its harvests in exchange for poverty and daily fear of deportation,
We lift up the stones of our self-righteousness, O Merciful One.

As we cast these stones into the troubled streams of our times, Compassionate One, hear our plea that, as water wears away the hardest of stones, so too, may mercy and righteousness roll down like rivers, dissolve the hardness of our hearts, and carve a future of justice and peace.

For a country that has elected an African American who will sit in the Oval Office and whose family will live in a White House built by slaves,
We lift up the flower of our hope, O Great Spirit.

For the ability of the human heart to repent when it recognizes itself in another,
We lift up the flower of our compassion, O Forgiving One.

For the brave warriors of justice who sat at lunch counters, faced police dogs and fire hoses, and risked their lives to set freedom free,
We lift up the flower of our strength, O Great Liberator.

For the fierce vision of our oneness that refuses to let us go,
We lift up the flower of our resolve, O Boundless Love.

As we cast these flowers into the troubled oceans of our times, Transforming One, hear our plea that as the water carries them to allshores, so too may vision and hope be ever with us so that beauty, justice andpeace may blossom.

- olivebranchinterfaith.org: Full program and order of events