"We" Prayers - Daniel, Life in Exile series (Tim Knipp)

*Next to You, God,
our filth is exposed
in blinding light.
Our wrongs
pile up 
in mountainous heaps.
No one
is clean before You.
Even our most righteous acts
are marred with self-interest.
As individuals
and as a whole,
we have failed You
again and again.

Can I, like Daniel
pray "we"
as I glimpse the fractures
in the world today?
Can I identify with the oppressed
and oppressor alike?
Are all wrongs 
my wrongs?

**Jesus - clean as a whistle -
dives into the cleansing water
before exiling Himself
to the burning sand
for forty days.
***Another time He prays
over Jerusalem,
likening His affection
to a hen protecting her chicks.
He prayed "we."
He prays "we" today.

How shall we live
in times 
of hostility?
In times of blame
and shame?
By emulating Christ
and identifying 
with a broken world.
By praying "we"
for all shivering souls.

*Daniel 9:1-19

**Matt. 3:13

***Matt. 2:3-37