From my book In a World of Tears and Sorrow, a poem to inspire prayer as it faces us with the pleas of the needy, suffering and broken of our world.
Did you hear my plea when I called you?
In the lonely, the broken, the poor?
In the frail and the weak?
Those whose life is so bleak?
In the people afflicted by war?
Did you suffer their pain
as they cried out in vain?
Did you seek to respond to their need?
Did you feel their despair?
Ever show that you care?
Or complacently pay them no heed?
Did you hear my cry when I called you?
When I asked you to reach out and serve?
Were you able to see
that the call came from me?
Did my challenge perhaps hit a nerve?
Did your ears maybe burn?
Did you show your concern
at injustice, oppression and wrong?
Did you note what I said,
or ignore it instead,
and guiltily hurry along?
Did you hear my voice when I called you?
In the sobs of the hungry child?
In the pain and the fears
or the shedding of tears
of the outcast, despised and reviled?
Did you check these things out?
Did you bother about
helping anyone other than you?
If the world is to feel
that commitment is real
you must care about others too.