A Prayer of Responsibility for Children
By Ina J Hughes
We pray for children who put chocolate fingers every where,
who like to be tickled, who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants, who sneak
Popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, who can never find
their shoes.
And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind
barbed wire, who can’t bound down the street in anew pair of sneakers, who never
“counted potatoes,” who are born in places in which we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus, who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls
of dandelions, who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish, who hug us in a hurry
and forget their lunch money, who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off
key, who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, who slurp their soup.
And we pray for those who never get dessert, who have no safe
blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can’t
find any bread to steal, who don’t have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures
aren’t on anybody’s dresser, whose monsters are real.
We pray for children who spend all their allowance before
Tuesday, who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick their food, who like
ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the
tub, who love visits from the tooth fairy, who don’t like to be kissed in front
of the school bus, who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone, whose
tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren’t spoiled by
anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep.
Who live and move and
have no being.
We pray fro children who want to be carried and for those who
must, for those we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance.
For those we smother…and for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough
to offer it.
Hear our cries and listen to our prayers, Amen.
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