International City/County
Management Association
October 7, 2007 Pittsburgh, PA

Good and gracious God, you have created the world and everything in it. You have called the universe into being and placed us in a delicately balanced solar system so marvelously and mysteriously capable of sustaining life on our planet.

And so, we give thanks: for the miracle of our lives, for those who are dear to us, and for the amazing diversity of life: nations and races and religions spread across your world.

O God of all people and all nature, we come here today from different places, different communities and nations — and we voice our common prayer for the peace and wholeness of your world. We ask you to be present with compassion wherever your children suffer from violence and warfare. We ask your calming generosity for those whose religion inspires hatred and violence toward the other.

We ask your gift of strength for those who feed the hungry, and visit the oppressed and clothe the naked and shelter the homeless.

We ask your gift of tenacity for those who work for peace and reconciliation.

And we ask for courage for all those men and women who must live with fear and uncertainty.

We thank you, O God, for men and women who devote their lives to public service and to the important vocation of public administration. We are grateful for their skill at enabling systems of governance and security and safety — to work and serve all. We thank you for their unselfishness, and their commitment to the common good.

We thank you for this good organization, for all the ways it supports and serves the human community: for its professional and volunteer leaders who finish their terms: bless them with a sense of important work completed. And we pray for those who take up a new mantle of leadership.

And we thank you that you have created all of us in your image, and breathed your spirit into us. Remind us, O God, that when we look into one another’s faces, we see something of your face. Remind us, again and again, O God, that your love transcends all the differences of nation, class, race and religion that divide us: and that you have made us to live in peace and justice and kindness, with one another and with all your children.

Amen

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