A hymn for Japan

Tectonic plates beneath the ocean's surface, uplifted, twisting life and limb and wave. The landscape that was home has lost its features, destruction means that few are left to save.

An empty chair amid such devastation where cars like toys, are lifted, spun about;and here we wait and pray in helpless anguish; and 'where is God' we want to cry and shout.

Incarnate God we need your present spirit to live within your people at this time, to energise our prayerful words and actions, to offer grace to life's discordant rhyme.

God offer hope to those who feel forsaken, to those whose lives have spun and turned around; to those whose grief defies all consolation, bring grace and love and hope and solid ground.

© Andrew Pratt 2011

Photo credit: 110312-N-ZI955-085 by  the US Pacific Fleet http://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/5520357808/Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en