One in Prayer, with the People of Syria

The effects of the ongoing war in Syria is reported on in this BBC news program by journalists who have been reporting in and around Syria the past two years. I found that this report goes deeper into me than most, as it is also personal to journalists themselves. It brought home the reality of what is happening for people in Syria, and awakens me more keenly to the desperation and urgency of those who live in that war zone, or have fled from it. The devastating impact on people's live; the passionate crying need for change, and the need for war to end.

Hearing this newscast made me think at one point: what could I do? I thought: I could I go to a country near Syria, and help with refugees. Then I thought no, I am right where I need to be. Here, I can awaken to the suffering there, and let it be part of my everyday prayer of my heart, and I can share from this place. Those who are in Syria must focus on surviving, and there is the need for others elsewhere to know of their plight. As we feel called to awaken to the suffering in Syria or anywhere in the world, as part of our reality - and as we center deeply in our prayers on their behalf and on behalf of peace - we help the world awaken to its conscience.

May war and inhumanity come to have no foothold in consciousness or behavior in the world.

I pray for this awakening. I pray for courageous acts of peace - and courageous acts of refusals to war - that grow though the awakening of the heart.

Every moment a person says "no" to war and to violence, and "no" to oppression and exploitation, creates also the basis through which war is prevented in the future.

May all hearts awaken.

 

~ 
BBC World Service, The Fifth Floor
16 March 2013: Two years of the Syria Story
via tunein: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Fifth-Floor-p377018/
or via podcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/tff

(also posted on http://www.facebook.com/ResponseofLight )