Eternal God, we bow with ambivalence during this another week of a September eleventh.  The remembrance of that destructive catastrophe is indelibly seared into our souls.  We confess our tendency to harbour hatred which we know is wrong.  We often have felt outrage and intense anger.  Aircraft have taken on a new and alien and unwanted meaning.  And we have formed a very suspicious world which seems always to be on the edge of terror.  Deliver us, O God, from this body of death. Provide healing to our hatred bent world.

Give healing to the age-old tendency to place blame for problems on someone else.
Give healing to the age-old tendency to seek revenge, to save face, to get even.
Give healing to the age-old and foolish notion that force and war and arms are the solution to any problem.
Give healing to the age-old tendency of nations to desire to dominate others.
Give us greater trust in one another.
Give us the will to choose love rather than hate.
Give us the ability to risk on behalf of peace.

We pray for our national leaders and all of the political leaders of the world.  Teach them and us new ways of relating.  Heal the inevitable conflicts of the world.  Teach us all where to focus the values of our hearts.  Help us to be about the business of building that shining realm of God of which Jesus spoke, of counting the cost, of divesting our lives of the greed of possessions.  Help us to put aside the values of the past. Help us learn to deny ourselves in the pursuit of the gospel.  Help us to count the cost of our spiritual journey, to find victory, and to trust you when the way is not clear.  Amen