My prayer for you
Donald Trump
is that you are struck
My prayer for you
Vladimir Putin
is that you are struck
My prayer for you
Benjamin Netanyahu
is that you
are struck
with the beauty that gleams in the eyes
of a Palestinian child
the truth that drives the fingers
of an Al Jazeera reporter
the mercy of a doctor
from Médecins Sans Frontières
And my prayer for all of you
who make
a killing
by selling weapons
is that you
are struck
with the light that struck the Buddha
under the Bodhi Tree
the light that struck Muhammad
in the cave
the light that struck St Paul on the road
to Damascus
the light that shone on Moses
from the burning bush
the fire that carved the commandments
in the tablets:
Thou shalt
not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbour’s house.
Okay, this prayer
is way too idealistic
but here’s a more
pragmatic one:
My prayer for you, yes, you, here,
so far from all that death
For you with the managed fund investment
and you with the KiwiSaver1 retirement nest-egg
and you with less than next week’s rent
in a bank account—
you with your adequate or less-than-adequate portion
that, for all you know, may be invested
in bits of companies
that own bits of companies
that make
a killing
by selling weapons
my prayer for you
is that you are struck
with the motivation
to learn
perhaps
to be shocked
and to use
the right we’re so lucky to have—
the permission to choose,
to find more ethical places
to stash what little we have
That’s just one
of the things we can do
I wanted to pray for Spotify, too,
its CEO Daniel Ek, and what he’s doing
with his millions, but I couldn’t get it to
sound right
And so my prayer for all of us here
groping in the existential quandary
of our relative freedom
is that we
are struck
with the knowledge that whatever
the merchants
and media
would have us think
together
together
together
we are far
from powerless
- KiwiSaver is a voluntary superannuation scheme in Aotearoa New Zealand; we can choose which fund to invest with. ↩︎
Jackson 