Following the recent vote on “The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill” in the House of Commons, I know that people with a wide range of lived experiences and perspectives are feeling anxious. In his blog on the bill, JPIT’s Steve Tinning pointed to the need to ‘continue to listen and engage with the conversation about assisted dying faithfully, prayerfully and compassionately’. This prayer is offered as one way in which we might create space for that listening, engagement and dialogue.
God with us,
you have experienced living, dying, and living again.
You are woven within and between us
throughout our lives and in our deaths.
May we hold space
for those who are living with anxiety, uncertainty, fear and pain.
[silence]
God with us,
you have experienced caring and loss.
You are woven within and between us
in our caring and in our grieving.
May we hold space
for those who care and those who grieve.
[silence]
God with us,
you have experienced disagreements and debate,
been unheard and been treated unkindly in response to your words.
You are woven within and between us
in our thinking, in our speaking, and in our listening,
May we hold space in our certainty
for those who are certain in a differing conviction,
and hold space for uncertainty,
be it our own or experienced by those we meet on the way.
[silence]
In the name of Christ,
who lived and died and lives again,
Amen.