An Advent Prayer as Fires Burn

God of all cre­ation and renew­al,
Bring heal­ing to this burn­ing land!

We pray for dark­ened skies,
Now choked with poi­son,
This dry and blis­tered earth,
And all your hurt­ing creatures.

We pray for fire­fight­ers and vol­un­teers.
And thank you for their self­less love,
For val­our in the place of per­il.

We pray for the tra­di­tion­al own­ers and cus­to­di­ans of the land.

We pray for farm­ers,
For fam­i­lies,
The exiled and dis­placed.

For those who have lost all.

Turn our words of lamen­ta­tion into com­pas­sion, jus­tice and rebirth.

Heal our bro­ken hearts, O Lord!
Bap­tise us again.

(Deliv­ered at St James’, King Street in Syd­ney on the Sec­ond Sun­day of Advent, 2019.)