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 pray for people who are targets of anti-Asian hate in the US and elsewhere.
Today we pray for all people who have been victimized by anti-Asian hate, especially ethnocentric attacks related to the spread of COVID-19. We pray especially for Chinese Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Chinese international students in the US.
We pray for those we don’t know and for those we do, including [names of people we know who have been victimized or who fear being victimized.]
We pray for people who have been traumatized by hate, harassment, discrimination, and abuse. We pray for them security, safety, peace of heart, the ability to forgive if they seek it, justice, and fairness.
We pray for those who live with the consequences of generations of oppression, those whose lives and whose family trees have been shaped by oppression. We pray for memories of connection and comfort.
We pray for those who live in fear of abuse because of their ethnicity or appearance. We pray for them bravery, protection, and friendship.
For those of us who live without such fear, we pray solidarity with those who suffer, the courage to intervene, and life-long commitments to justice.
We pray for perpetrators of hate, that they would be released from their fears and anger. We hope for them accountability, hearts ready for reconciliation, and opportunities for restitution.
We remember the cruel history of anti-Asian sentiment and policy in American history and recognize the ways that our nation has failed to provide safe haven for those in need or to live up to its promises to Asians and Asian Americans, including the internment of Japanese Americans and others during World War II. We seek correction of our collective past and present failures.
We are thankful for all people of Asian descent, strangers and friends, and hope for them safety and peace wherever they are.
Hung Liu’s Chinese Profile II (1998) shows the profile of a Chinese woman. She large earrings and her long hair is drawn up and held by an elaborate comb.
Family Foxhole 