Today the people of the most powerful nation in the world, sometimes the most great-hearted and compassionate, sometimes the most violent and destructive, wake up to choose our leaders. Or our rulers.

Let us pray:

 You Who are the Interbreathing Spirit of the World,

Who intertwines the workers who build a road with the business-owners who depend upon it;

Who intertwines the youth despairing at being forever disemployed with the home-owner despoiled and wounded by his drugged and weaponed neighbor;

Who intertwines the oil gushing from a broken well with the nearby pelicans and shrimp, and with the fisher-folk who live upon the shore;

Who intertwines those who advertise a luxury oil-burning automobile with the overheated oceans on the edges of a major city;

Who intertwines the corn fields withering in Iowa with starving children in deepest Africa:

Who intertwines the families of Abraham in all their fear and longing for each other;

Who intertwines the teachers who can shape a child into a wise and worthy citizen, with the politicians who will seek her vote.

 As we decide today upon our future,

upon the futures of our children and their children,

upon the future of all humanity,

upon the future of all life upon our glorious planet —

Breathe into us today the wisdom to shape our breath with tongues and lips into the words we humans share to hear and learn each other;

Breathe into us the wisdom to shape and share our words so that they aim toward even deeper wisdom;

Breathe into us the wisdom to hear not with our ears alone but with our hearts and wombs;

Breathe into us the wisdom to weave upon the edges of our selves the threads of connection that bind us to You and to all life;

Breathe into our minds and hearts and souls the wisdom to wisely use our hands in casting votes;

Breathe into us the truthfulness that our hands count what our eyes see.

Today of all days, as we wake up, help us awake beyond our waking.

For You are our Breath, our Wind, our Spirit,  and we are Your breath, Your wind, Your spirit.

And let us say, Ahmeyn, Ahmin, Aymen.