‘Lord, teach us to pray’

On Monday I wake to the news of another ten thousand refugees on the run from Kosovo. Another week begins with a knot in the stomach – helpless anger and a sickening sense of rampant evil winning.

It’s Tuesday, and Indonesian islands are awash with human blood as troops turn a blind eye to the massacre of innocent villagers and townspeople. And more images of Kosovo – grief-stricken faces, sobbing children, people shocked beyond belief by what they’ve been through, children separated from their families; mothers torn from loved ones; grandparents and uncles who’ve watched brothers and sisters and children and grandchildren murdered in front of them.

Wednesday comes and it’s more of the same. Hundreds of thousands now have fled, and Rwanda in a European guise repeats itself before our eyes. On our doorstep, heroine takes its relentless daily toll; and while our leaders strut their preambles the dispossessed still wait for an Apology. The car radio tells me another prisoner hangs himself in an economically rational private prison. A year on remand awaiting trial. I’d be desperate too.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday the same – the catalogue of misery and horror grows with every news bulletin, and what could not be worse is revealed to be worse. And now the protectors, from relative safety, have exploded a train and a column of refugees. A relayed email from Belgrade reveals the fear of the innocent caught in the web of political games played by powerful men, as the bombs come closer. Another, from India Mail, tells of the spate of violence against Christians, and of ‘earthquake victims living in the open fields totally unprotected from the rains and wild animals. As to the political situation, it is very unstable – The most affected are the poor and marginalised in the country. Please pray for stability.’

Saturday night, and again pathetic lines of people in the snow, clutching a few meagre belongings. Grandmothers wheeled for days in barrows, broken limbed people on the shoulders of friends. Minds forever scarred with unspeakable images of rape and murder, torture – the obscenity of so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’. Again and again the haunting images of shock, grief, pain and fear – the faces of the broken hearted and desolate and frightened and bewildered and numb with shock. Human beings – people like you and me – scramble for bread and huddle pitifully in freezing camps of plastic, and are swept away overnight to unknown destinations of someone else’s choosing.

In my mind I know that somehow God has foreseen and dealt with such evil. But in my heart, my gut, I am sick with the idea that we’ve been given the freedom to destroy each other’s lives on such a scale. Will Sunday help me to start a new week still confident in God?

It’s hard to pray. But there is great comfort in Romans 8, where we are told that ‘the whole creation is groaning’ and ‘we who have the Spirit also groan within ourselves’. Indeed ‘the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express’. This is deep stuff. But it helps to see the bigger context – the cosmic context. In this light, and against the background of the week’s events, a request to pray for good weather for the barbecue looks not just selfish, but totally inconsequential, inappropriate, a trivialisation of life and God and the suffering around us.

On ABC talk-back a caller complained about having his nose rubbed in sensational images of a school massacre again and again. Did he not want to see these images even once? ‘No, we need to see it once, but not over and over again. I just can’t cope with it.’ The journalist said, ‘I’m sure there would be some in here who would agree with you.’ Then the other current affairs journalist in the conversation said that in his home the children are not allowed to watch the news.

I’m glad I’m not alone. But how do we cope? What is the proper response for those of us who believe?

Somewhere between sinking into depression about the world of unrelenting news horror, and praying for fine weather, there must be a right way of embracing the reality of suffering on one hand, and joy and thankfulness on the other. Perhaps others, like me, need help on Sunday mornings to articulate, in a way that pleases God and helps us, both our praise and the groaning of our spirits for personal holiness, social justice, the salvation of others, the coming of God’s kingdom. And doing that together on Sundays might strengthen and help us to do it in private all through the week.

Author Unknown