As I write this, one week from today lurks very close, the deadline for Americans and their aids must be out of Afghanistan. The situation is dire. One airport in a huge country, hundreds of miles for people in provinces away from Kabul to travel, and the threat of checkpoints and harassments very real, make this situation desperate for many. We listen to governmentese, the complications of too many diplomats across too many departments, none of which seems to have a plan, speaking in doubletalk, while the world wrings its hands. My Psalm 507:
My Psalm 507
Eternal Father, Strong to save,
I come to your sanctuary, this placid garden
Where Your creative spirit reigns
In each petal, each bee’s wing, each vibrant hue,
And pray for peace in Your world among men.
I heard yesterday a startling statement:
Only spiders and men wait, watching for another to die.
I would add the vultures flying overhead.
The world watches, glued to screens, awaiting hope dwindle
As the threat of death awaits many in Afghanistan.
For years we have sacrificed our soldiers there,
Bleeding their lifeblood into the sandy dessert and rugged mountains.
We have sown our treasure and watched corruption steal our resources
In wasteful misguided diplomacy, the plans of mere men.
The world watches this day the true sufferings in Afghanistan.
The world waits for enemy-imposed deadlines
Barricades, artillery, imposed hostility
To dash not only hope, but subjugate living beings
Made in Your image, to intimidation, danger, and death.
Once more the horror of Man’s inhumanity
To Man invades our home’s sanctuary
And scrapes our souls raw.
Where do we find peace?
We cannot swim oceans or send special forces;
We cannot respect our failed leaders;
We cannot ignore terror, agony, and lost hope;
We cannot pray more fervently than we are.
We see sand, barren hills, beige darkness
In the land where we spilled blood.
We see young women who had hoped
They could achieve and rise, and make a difference
Now faced with slavery, indignity, and loss of worth.
We see desperate parents longing to be free
And power-hungry thugs rejoicing in their might.
We pray for huddled Christians whose souls are free
But whose bodies are chained, beaten, defeated.
We see protestors hoping against hope
To rise up against oppressors.
We see frightened fighters now robbed of freedom’s hope
And desperate to flee from their weapons turned upon them.
We see waffling officials’ powerlessness
Using doublespeak and lies to shield incompetence
Thinking we won’t notice empty platitudes.
We hear lies twisted to seem like truth
And truth hidden because inept blunders
Lurk behind their actions, belying veracity.
Whom but You can we trust?
We credit soldiers sent on a fools’ errand
To oversee panicked crowds yearning for better lives
Than what they foresee in their future.
The world stage sees tears, desperation, determination
And despairs that paperwork may not achieve safety
If indeed our patriots and supporters can arrive at all.
O heavenly Father, You Who created the universe,
You who made the lily I hold in my hand
Arrayed in better than Solomon’s glory,
Look with mercy on Afghanistan’s people.
They try to flee wearing a day’s wardrobe,
Leaving all behind as they sweat in daytime’s heat
And stand in nighttime’s cover of darkness,
Hoping tomorrow’s dawn will bring relief.
Little children, old men, and thousands of women and girls
Long for opportunity while melting in the sun
Afraid they’ll lose their places in the crowd.
They huddle together, standing shoulder to shoulder
Sleeping, standing up—
No food, no water, no bathrooms, no relief
From their isolation in stinking mobs.
They fear staying, for worse years await them
Far more dangerous than mere days of desperate waiting.
They’ve heard of a land where some freedom remains
And they can start over with grit and determination.
They cling to departing planes, they fall to their deaths.
Who knows their names? Who knows their destinies?
And our nation, the most generous on earth,
Houses our citizens on streets in Los Angeles, Portland,
Seattle, San Francisco, and under tropical foliage in our town.
We quibble over whose lives matter, we talk of WOKE and CRT
While COVID steals our people, and drugs of choice choose our children.
We abort our babies, millions of them, we murder our young in the streets.
And now we invite more. May they make a difference.
We are absorbing thousands who cross borders unguarded,
Open to those brought by cartels for profit.
We will house, medicate, feed, educate, and give
For those being rescued. It is just who we, as a nation, are.
Yes, the poem says, “Send those, your huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free,” (Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus)
The dichotomy of haves and have nots grows.
How it must grieve You, Lord God, who created all men
As equals. Sin has sown distrust, hatred, distinction, and
Ruined not only in the Green New Deal, the slavery of socialism,
The embrace of Marxism, the ignorance of Constitutional principles,
And the diminishment of the American Dream and all it has meant.
We have rejected Your laws, commandments, covenants
And strayed from Your principles.
You have allowed us to go our own way, to seek our pleasures
And we have corrupted every corner of the globe.
Forgive us, and bring us to the simplicity of my sanctuary garden,
Where You provide the sunshine, the rain,
The nourishing vitality and the will to live in beauty.
May it be so for those seeking peace to come, visit my garden,
And find rest. I will pray with you and show you God’s plan.
I pray for the generosity of our people, their mercy, their kindness,
Their brotherhood and sisterhood, their ideals and their treasure
(Not the corruption of our leaders with their worthless slogans and platitutes)
To welcome and cherish these newcomers,
Sharing with them, encouraging them
And thanking those who provide them aid.
May we be the city on the hill, the lights of freedom,
And the welcoming arms we need to be,
Should these hoards find places on packed airliners
Before dastardly deadlines.
Lord, You have made time stand still in the past.
There were days the sun did not set.
Perhaps this would be a good time for Maranatha.
We pray for Your merciful intervention
Yet again.
We are undeserving, confession our transgressions,
But hoping for Your grace to be poured out
As You have in the past.
Give us a Red Sea, the burning of the altars of Baal,
And the rising up of a Daniel, the Empty Tomb moment of worship
At yet another desperate time.
Amen and Amen.
About the Author
