Prayer in Response To the Atlanta Shootings

We awoke to news of the largest mass shooting since the pandemic began. Eight people were shot and killed in three different locations with seven of them being women, and six of the seven were Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI).

While the motive of the shooter is still being investigated, and we’re learning that addiction and shame may also have played a role, this tragedy occurred on the same day that a report was released showing a 150% rise in hate crimes against AAPI and more than 3,800 incidents in the past year alone.

Fear and trauma in the AAPI community are intensely present right now. As an organization that believes in oneness and holds a vision of peace and human dignity for all, we stand in solidarity with the AAPI community and speak this prayer for the families that are mourning and for the healing of racism and violence that create suffering in our world.

Please join us in this prayer:

We come to the present moment in a place of sadness and mourning, confusion, and anger, and come to know that amid this tragedy and natural responses to tragedy and violence, the presence of the Living Spirit, the Divine is still fully here at the center of our being providing a healing balm and a place where both grief and the healing that comes with that grief lives, moves, and has its being.

We know this same healing energy is present for the families that have been directly affected by this tragedy. We know that the love we feel for our fellow AAPI brothers and sisters, who are experiencing the collective trauma of this incident permeates out, surrounds, and enfolds their hearts and minds. It is through this love and recognition of our oneness that we also stand and mourn in solidarity with the AAPI community and the trauma they’ve experienced in the past year since the pandemic began. We hold a place of safety, strength, and commitment to ensuring and upholding protection and peace of all, giving special attention to our AAPI friends right now.

And it is from this space we extend this prayer to our country and the world, holding a place of healing from the ravages of separation, racism, misogyny, and the mindless acts that are birthed from hate and power over another. We hold a space for the collective healing that is being called forth from each one of us in this Sacred time we are sharing on the planet together, allowing our hearts to build bridges of understanding, of greater awareness, and of the mending of all our relations. We know this work is God’s work and take refuge in remembering that this healing is being supported by a power greater than ourselves, with each breath, with each tear, with each rush of anger, or swirl of confusion, we rest in the knowing that healing is happening within us and around us.

And as we rest into that space, where grief, healing, and coming together can all take place at once, we give thanks for the heart-breaking that eventually settles into heart-opening, we give thanks for the ways in which our own hearts are able to be moved and further moved into an active inspiration to stand for one another.

With love, with heartbreak, with togetherness, we say, Amen. And so it is.

Rev. Masando Hiraoka