Some prayer pointers for Orlando

The tears are falling for the Orlando shooting and the loss of 50 LGBT lives in an attack. Reading through the social media streams and watching the mainstream media has provided an interesting contrast for me which highlights the issue…..there is much about this tragedy and other LGBT deaths which the straight/ cis world doesn’t, perhaps can’t get.

This post is seeking to give some pointers to help us pray in an informed way for this tragedy.

After we have prayed for the dead and injured the first group that many of us will be praying for will be the family and friends of those who have died. This tragedy may be particularly difficult for some who struggled to accept their child’s sexuality or gender identification. Then there may be those whose children may have lived a closeted life. We don’t know if some, in their grief, will also be dealing with disclosure of their children’s sexuality or gender identification. As we pray for the parents let it be in an informed way with these things in mind.

The next group that we might want to pray for are the friends of the bereaved. Many of these friends are going to be part of the LGBT community, others will not. Again for those who may of lived closeted lives there may be those friends and colleagues who are having to come to terms with feelings related to “why didn’t I know?”. Amongst the LGBT+ community there will be a range of feelings, whilst the aim of the community is to love and give acceptance there will also be anger as well. There may also be fear, particularly amongst BAME members of the LGBT community, who already face discrimination amongst their own LGBT community at times. Let us pray that those members of our community know they are truly accepted.

We also need to pray for those friends and members of the community who regularly experience hate and for those whom this confirms all the negative views they have of religion about being a source of hate.

We also need to pray for each member of the LGBT community as they seek to support others in their community. There will be people, particularly in that local community and in those cities preparing for upcoming Prides who will be extremely busy in their grief and will be seeking to provide so much support whilst not having the space to grieve themselves. We need to particularly remember them.

Then there are the first responders and surgeons. We need to pray for them in their work and as they possibly face post-traumatic stress for what they have faced. Within some of these people there will be contrasting feelings about the LGBT+ community. Franklin Graham has indicated on Facebook one of the chief surgeon’s is on the board of Samaritans Purse. They will be doing their job professionally, yet it might bring them face to face with the reality of the prejudice that their faith has within it.

Let us pray for these people that may be facing a real dissonance through this experience. Let us pray too for those whose dissonance lead to responses which seem lacking and hurtful through what they omit.

Let us pray for the media too. The way in which news is made means that complex things are often reduced into soundbites, particularly by people who don’t understand the pain that their reductionist approach is giving. Let us pray against reductionism, this was a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender tragedy as President Obama said. Let us not reduce it to “gay”.

When praying for communities affected let us not get sucked into just thinking of the physical Orlando community but also let us think about the wider LGBT+ community, who are closer and much more of an actual community than many realise.

When talking about a terrorist attack let us not believe that it can be separated from a hate attack. The very fact you are part of a community who is subject to hate crime can increase your risk of being a terrorist target. It can also make you more liable to further hate crime when you are innocently part of another group who terrorists happen to be an unrepresentative minority of. Let us pray against both homophobia and Islamophobia.

Let us pray for love most of all and for a change of hearts amongst those who would sow the seeds of hate through ideology which forgets people.

Finally, let us pray for the family and friends of the guy who shot these people. They are also bereaved and going through all sorts of pain too. Let us show them love rather than hate too.

If you want a ready made prayer I would highly recommend one put together by Rachel Mann.