Articles of my faith / Prayer for dark times

God, keep me from the temptation to say what I am thinking.  Help me to be silent in the face of fuckery, thoughtfully concerned and rightly troubled about oppression and injustice both here and elsewhere, to myself and others, cautious in the presence of all.  Keep my heart and will open to the thinking by which we try to make sense of our experience, and I will hasten to do what is just.  In time of trouble, let this be my answer, in the hope that those who love the justice and happiness of the promise will give some rare thought to what they are doing and what is happening, even in the face of the stupidity and barbarism of the state of things and its enforcement that goes by the name of common sense.  And let me not forget that in the way you think it is always better to be wrong than boring. 

(Liberally adapted from: “Silent Prayer,” Central Conference of American Rabbis, Gates of Prayer (1975), p. 71).