INTRODUCTION

On the night of May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was arrested and killed by a Minneapolis police officer, who kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than 8 minutes despite the fact that the victim was supplicating “I can’t breathe.”

At PUMC, we conducted a special five-day Prayer Vigil, invoking the Breath of God to come to our rescue, to help us overcome the long-lasting pain of African Americans, to help us overcome the abuses of the police forces and the pain of racism in general that resides in our country and in the world.

You can conduct your own Prayer Vigil now. Choose where to pray — wherever you are, however, you want. No need to write or say prayers out loud or publicly unless you want to.

You may also choose to come to pray outside the church. (the building is locked). There you will find Prayer Pods (hula hoops, set six-feet apart), Prayer Flags (with instructions), and Chalk (to create prayers on the sidewalk).

Here are links

to a guide for each of the five days:

Allow this Prayer Resource to guide you, but set it down if it’s not resonating with you. It is not required.

We ask the Breath of God to help us all to breathe in these tremendously difficult times we are facing right now. We need healing. As a diverse community, joyfully responding to God’s love and growing always more as disciples of Jesus, we, as PUMC, are here also to end racism. We are showing up everywhere helping to transform the world into the Kingdom of God.

Let’s address and recognize the pain, let’s express it out and allow ourselves to go through the emotions of this painful and grieving time. Let’s forgive and overcome all boundaries and finally, let’s manifest our common needs, the universal needs we are all seeking since the beginning of times, these needs that bring us together as one human family, in God.

We are all one.

I am because you are.

Relationship to others, to nature, and to everything around us is what makes us exist.

Let’s drop our judgments.

Let’s move from a self-centered vision of “I think therefore I am” to an altruistic vision of “we relate therefore we are” in order to invite the Reign of God on Earth.

We are all children of God.

We walk together, hand in hand, against the storms of adversity, towards the same sun, the Spirit of God, which is union and life, like Christ did. He showed us the way, dying for us.

Let’s create and show real human unity.

Let’s move from communitarianism to the real community.

Let’s reconcile where we all come from to where we all are going.

Denying our roots is not the solution either, our roots are our uniqueness. We don’t all want to look the same, God made us all different.

We believe there is a way out.

Let’s use the power of our DIFFERENT roots to elevate the ONE stem, so that the branches, the flowers and the fruits of universal love can finally shine in our lives and in the world.

We, the human family, are this Tree of God.

Deep inside, we all know how to live our uniqueness AND our universality AT THE SAME TIME. This is what real unity through diversity means.

The Spirit of Union, the Holy Spirit, will help us to reach that.

It will help us overcome all deceiving traps of the Spirit of Division.

Christ showed us how to do that.

Let’s join him.

Let’s end racism, once and for all.

One human family, in God.

We are a diverse community, joyfully responding to God’s love and growing as disciples of Christ by nurturing, teaching, reaching, and serving all people.

Posted by Isabella Dougan