Our family is taking time daily to pray about the current global health crisis. Our prayers will likely reference the Christian tradition, but we’ve written with an ecumenical and agnostic audience in mind.
If you’d like us to pray for you, let us know. If you’d like us to write a prayer for you or for a concern you have and share it here, just ask. You don’t have to share your name if you don’t want to, and we won’t share it or any other identifying details about you here or elsewhere.
Today, we are focusing our prayer on older people around the world.
Today we remember those all those who are older, around the globe. We remember those who are only beginning to enjoy the pleasures of old age as well as those who are preparing for the end of their lives.
We pray for those we don’t know, and we pray for those we do know, including [the older people we know, including ourselves]. We pray for all those who love and support them, including family members, friends, neighbors, and workers in healthcare, eldercare, and other fields.
We pray for those whose aging bodies sometimes surprise them with changes, unexpected or not. We pray for those who are transitioning to new roles as retirees, especially those for whom economic downturn or health concerns have forced into unplanned retirement. We pray for those who suddenly serving as caregivers for children in their family as well as those who are grandparents-as-parents who now have children in their home during the school day. We pray for those who worry about their health, their safety, and the future of the world.
Our hope for older people is that they experience wholeness and coherence in their lives, that they accept themselves and others and find acceptance in the love and support of others. We pray for them safety in a world that too often capitalizes on their fears. We hope for them hope about their future and the future beyond them. We hope for them a release from all fear.
We are grateful for older people, for their contributions in the past, now, and in the future. We are thankful for their presence in our lives and in our world.
Above, John Prine sings “Hello in There.”
Family Foxhole 