One can only pray in a house with windows

Editor’s note: The following invocation was delivered at the 42nd annual National Day of Prayer luncheon, May 4 at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.

Adonai sefatai tiftach: Holy One of Blessing, open our lips, teach us to pray.

Teach us the prayer of honest self-examination, of inner work, for the bridge to the holy begins in the human heart.

Teach us the prayer of thanks, for the gifts that surround us every day. Awaken our sense of wonder.

Teach us the prayer of compassion, for our world of wonders is also a world of suffering: The child who depends on school for meals, the adult who struggles with addiction, the neighborhoods threatened by chemical waste, the quiet fear of the surgical waiting room, nations and peoples at war. They are yours, dear God, and they are ours. Teach us a prayer that sees them, that knows them, that loves and lifts them up.

“Pursue justice,” you have proclaimed, so teach us a prayer of justice. For those imprisoned by circumstance and systems, who face racism and live in fear because of the faith they hold or the clothes they wear or the love they only wish to live; a prayer for all who struggle in poverty at the edge of a wealthy society’s table.

“Listen and hear,” you have commanded, and so teach us a prayer of listening. To hear the one who disagrees with us, to see the one who is unlike us, to breathe between the agitating word and our own response. Teach us to withhold our facile pre-judgements, our shortcuts to self-justification and easy virtue. Help us respond to polarization with presence. May our elected and appointed leaders do the same.

Our Jewish sages taught, “One can only pray in a house with windows.” And so teach us a prayer, give us a heart that sees the suffering and the wonder, the child and the aged, the one just like me and the one nothing like me. Give us a heart, and a prayer, with windows so that we might be open to You, open to each other, open to hope for the healing and the glory of your world. In that way, and with every breath, teach us a prayer for peace.

Amen.

David Stern is senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas.

This column is part of our ongoing Opinion commentary on faith, called Living Our Faith. Find the full series here.

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