The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on June 6, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
There is a big and heavy, yet complex and delicate, tension to hold when one makes a declaration of deep faith that “all shall be well.” One side of this tension insists that the Hand of the Holy One is already and always at work, holding all of reality in loving embrace, luring all beings, through the powerful force or Love, towards healing and wholeness. It is already done. In theological terms, redemption and salvation are already accomplished.
Yet, the other side of this tension reminds us: it may already be done, yet it is not yet finished. Too many babies are still hungry. Too many mamas’ bodies are still ravaged. Too many groups of people are forcibly on the move, seeking a place to rest for basic survival. Too many dollars are in the hands of the lords of the earth, and too many laws and social systems still support the diminishment of human life, rather than its flourishing. The labor of co-creation is still in process. Much work remains to be done in order to build up the Kingdom of God in its fullness.
The Hand of the Holy One, working toward healing and wholeness, manifests in the many hands of the many ones laboring together in the holy work of Love. Things are not yet as they need to be, and each act that calls attention to the not-yet, is a protest. In this sense, prayer is protest. Each overwhelmed sigh, grieving what is, is a protest. Each kind gesture of a smile or helping hand that lessens the distance of any kind of separation, is a protest. Every day of work that serves the common good is a protest. Each weekly gathering of worshippers petitioning against injustice is a protest. Organized gatherings of the folks in the streets and in front of places of power, is a protest, and also a prayer.
Prayer is protest when it points to unfinished work. Prayer is protest when it participates in actions that promote the common good. Prayer is protest when it builds up the force of Love by uniting the many holy hands laboring in Love, with the Holy Hand of the Creative One, who assures us, in deep faith, that indeed, all shall be well.
May our prayers, as co-laboring protest, be bold, loud, and holy.
