Referendum Prayer

HOKEY COKEY REFERENDUM BLUES

(A not-very-good-reflection on the UK's EU vote)
In. Out. Shake it all about.
Show me, Lord,
how on earth to vote
Which lines you are drawing
in the sands of time.
Raucous voices screaming
Demanding allegiance
Foreboding Armageddon
If we do, if we don't.
Invoking the Hokey Cokey
Should we dare to put our feet
In or out
As if this dance were truly
What life is all about.
And here in the stillness
Prince of Peace
I only ask for wisdom
Uncluttered
Open hands unclenched
A bigger heart
Unbrutalised by fear
Governed by love
from wherever it comes:
Have mercy on us, Lord
Bless us more
That we might better
bless the poor
On this our Day
Of Interdependence.
Turn the tide again
Tilt our hearts this solstice
From this strawberry moon
Towards the sun
That in this new season
the gospel might once again
Abound throughout this blighted field
That fruit forgotten might again
burst forth in bud and bloom,
Genetically unmodified,
bower and flower and blooded berry
from Flanders fields
to the Shankhill Road
Invoke in us
the ancient songs
That tell us who we truly are
Where we are from
To whom we belong
The destiny emerging
Faint in the mists
of common history
In this liminal land of
saints, drunks and Angels
In this continent aflame
This ancient gospel crucible
(A millennium or more)
This continent adrift
This theatre of wars
This heaven and hell
This wounded soul
Where east meets west
And thoughts explode
From libraries and laboratories
To somehow rule the world
With blood and ink and totem.
Grant us then this day
The sanity of peace
The blended tongues
The bended knees
The seeds of Pentecost
Sown between nations
No ego pomp
No rhetoric,
No flags at all but yours.
In this valley of decision
May we vote for the voiceless:
For the next generation
For the next door neighbour
For the celebration of other nations
For the economy, prosperity
And security of someone else
As you yourself have done for us.
And so Lord,
In or out
Shake us all about.
And wherever the lines
may be drawn today
May we please
love one another more tomorrow
As in the kingdom of heaven
So on earth in those of men
Wherever the lines may fall
In this Hokey Cokey dance
Of nations and ghosts
May we please
know greater peace tomorrow
On earth as in heaven.
Wherever the lines
may be marked -
In or out - on a blizzard of ballots
Whichever way the bread breaks
Wherever on earth your blood gets shed
Whatever is finally actually said
Father of nations,
You who appoint powers to rule
and disappoint them too
Show me how to vote
And I will work out what to do:
In or out? Shaken about?
Flailing limbs.
Turning round? Sitting down?
When the dust settles
And the news cycle migrates
May we somehow please still be friends?
Lord, wherever the lines
May be drawn
On these 40 million votes
You'll find mine - just two lines -
Prayerfully signed
From me to you:
The solemn-hopeful kiss
of a cross.

Pete Greig