War Zone

Pray for my city,

for this week it became a warzone.

For you it may be agendas and news,

But this place is my home.

I walk these streets, often alone.

The violence seen is not condoned.

The lives of my neighbors taken,

has left my city's people shaken.

It is our hour of need, we must awaken,

and see our God has not forsaken.

Heedless of ethnicity,

I ask you pray for my city.

For from this tragedy hope can arise

if we will lay down our pride,

and look to the One who paid the price.

For what will end this war, only love.

And that as which is from above.

For while still in the wrong we have done,

is when God chose to show His love.

I wrote this piece in the wake of the Downtown Dallas shooting last year, where the sniper was in a parking garage and started shooting police officers.  2 days before this happened I had been walking the street it was on, enjoying my day. Needless to say I was shaken up by this attack. But it was during this time that I realized that Dallas was no longer just the city I was going to school in; Dallas had become home to me. 

All the media spin on this tragedy served only to irritate me, either right or left. This was not an event to be seized for political influence, my neighbors were killed.  

Jeremiah 29:7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

I may not be in exile here, but it was the city God brought me to , and the context of this verse was a setting for framing your life for the long haul (in Babylon) and setting up your life where it prospers the place you were sent to, to "pray and seek it's prosperity", not just treat it like you are passing through. Granted I am still a vagabond, but  Dallas is my home.