It is difficult to leave home
And, very differently,
It is difficult to leave slavery.
It is difficult to leave home,
But people do it.
Graduates do it.
Soldiers do it.
Job seekers do it.
We depart the comfort and familiarity and affection of home,
but sometimes to depart to
freedom, and
new well-being,
and
fresh
fulfillment of all sorts.
It is difficult to leave slavery,
But people do it.
Our ancient people in Egypt left
Pharaoh,
our black citizens have become
free at last,
and on a lesser scale,
addicts of all sorts depart
to freedom and a new life.
But we do not want to go,
Because it is safe and familiar and protected
to remain “under the spell” of another
power.
And having left, we yearn to return…
to families only to find them different and strange,
to slaveries because freedom demands too much.
So we leave and return,
we grow and depart home and come home again;
we choose freedom and depart,
but stay enthralled
to too may enslavements.
We confess, as we depart and return,
that you are the God of all of our comings and goings,
you are the one who watches our
going out and our coming in.
For such troubles we pray your
mercy,
that we may have courage and freedom,
and peaceable rest.
You homemaker.
You emancipator.
You, God of all of our futures.
Give us wisdom to follow where you lead us.
Prayers for a Privileged People, Walter Brueggemann
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