Chasing Answers: A Prayer

Avinu She BaShamayim (Our Father in Heaven),
Some of us are sleeping in shelters tonight
Others in the comfort of our beds
Three families at least are in unbearable mourning
Countless more are in fear
We prayed for rain, Hashem,
We meant water
We prayed to be united,
We didn't mean under terror
Now, we pray for the hurt to stop for everyone involved
Now, again, we pray for a real, true peace.

Avinu, Malkenu,
I can't imagine what it's like
To live in fear for your life while sirens go off
While mortar and rockets and shells fall
And politicians and fighters promise doom and revenge
I'm absuredly lucky
I'm as blessed as they come
I'm safe and I'm healthy.
I'll try to understand
Try to put myself in their shoes
And pray, pray that they come out okay
Without scars, physical, emotional, or mental
Please watch over them/us/them, please stop this before it gets worse.

Malkenu, Chaneinu,
Help me
And those of us who are lucky
See beyond just the fact that we are lucky
Let us FEEL that we are,
Let us gain the strength and perspective to toss away those stupid hurts
That we just can't seem to shake,
The ones that keep us up at night for the wrong reasons.

Chaneinu, Ma'areinu,
Take them away.
Let us put them behind us, let them stop distracting us
From the fact that this is not real suffering.
Give us the perspective to stop hurting one another
Intentionally or unintentionally,
Give us the tools to think ahead, and make better decisions,
Give us the inability to sit thinking only of ourselves,
Make us demand to be heard,
Make us demand justice, and improvement, and peace, and truth in our words, and an end to pettiness.
Let us unite and see where there is real suffering
And let us end it.

Ki Ein Banu Ma'asim
God, we've done wrong to ourselves and each other
You alone have the power to give sight to the blind,
If there's to be injustice, let us be unable to take it,
Give us an allergy to others' pain.
And if you can't make empathy and action the rule,
Ease the suffering.
Heal the scars, restore the Faith we've lost in each other and the Universe, in You Who is Everywhere.
Because down here, there's nothing we can do,
Arguing doesn't help
Shouting falls on deaf ears
And crying doesn't sway anyone
And the pressure keeps building from stomach to chest to throat to head
We expel what we've swallowed
We dull our pain with whatever's there.
Give us a cure, not a placebo.
Or give us something we CAN do.

Asei imanu tzedakah v'chessed, v'hoshienu.
Give us your charity and kindness, and save us
From ourselves.
I've had enough.
We've had enough.
Haven't You?