A Prayer for Pakistan

Send us Fan MailWords and Voice by Rev'd Jon SwalesMusic by Santoor and Tabla at Assi Ghat, Varanasi by Samuel Corwin | https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Samuel_CorwinMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/A Prayer for Pakistan (Draft)Father of Creation,God of the Nations,Words fail to describe the horrors of climate breakdownUnleashed upon Pakistan.A photo,A video,A screaming child,A vacant look of disbelief on a parent's face.But even these are but a window,A glimpse,A snapshot,Of the carnage and catastrophe,That falls upon millions.We live in our panelled houses,Whilst 33 million lives are changed,184,000 camped out in relief camps.By extreme floods.By extreme suffering.Hundreds dead.Do you care?Is heaven silent?We ask that you calm the raging sea,But it seems you are absent without leave.Asleep at the wheel.In trembling faith,We ask,For mercy.In the fragility of our brokenness,We plead,For mercy.We cling tentatively to the hope and truth that you, Really are as beautiful and loving as that which is seen in Jesus.Let your love be shown,Let Pakistan hear your voice, saying,Peace, Be still.Wake up and set the world to rights.And yet, we know,We reap what we sow.But this is not strictly true.For we sow injustice and consumerism,Yet the brown skin nations reap.We have made our bed in unrestrained capitalism But it is the most vulnerable who lie in it.Those nations who have done the least per person to contribute to climate breakdown,Are those who suffer the most.We are hypocrites,Like sheep who have gone astray,We call out the shepherd, 'Is he really good?'Whilst embracing and maintaining economic systems,That are driven by domination and bring destruction.Lord, have mercy on Pakistan,And have mercy on us.Amen.