A Prayer for the Soul We Are Losing – Easter Sunday 4/5/26

We woke to a message that did not feel like ours,

not in tone, not in spirit,

not in the careful language a nation once held

like a fragile heirloom passed between generations.

It was Easter—

a day meant for quiet resurrection,

for forgiveness spoken softly,

for the belief that what is broken

can be made whole again.

Instead, there was noise.

Sharp-edged words sent across oceans,

casual, careless,

as though the weight of history

could be shrugged off in a single post.

And somewhere, beyond our borders,

eyes turned toward us—

not with admiration,

not with the old, complicated hope—

but with something quieter,

more difficult to bear.

Disappointment.

We felt it too,

though we tried to look away,

tried to explain it,

to dress it up as strategy or strength.

But it sat there, undeniable,

like a crack running through glass

you can no longer pretend isn’t spreading.

This is not who we told ourselves we were.

We were supposed to be deliberate,

to understand that words

can ignite or heal,

that power is not volume

but restraint.

We were the place others pointed to—

not perfect, never perfect—

but striving,

always striving toward something brighter

than the moment demanded.

A city on a hill, we said,

as if light were something permanent,

as if it could not dim

through neglect.

Now the light flickers.

Not gone,

but unsteady,

and the shame of that unsteadiness

is a quiet, persistent ache.

Where are the voices meant to steady the flame?

Where is the hand that says: enough,

that gathers the scattered pieces of dignity

and insists they matter?

We wait for that moment—

for courage to arrive not in speeches,

but in action,

in the simple, difficult act

of drawing a line.

Because something is slipping.

Not all at once—

never all at once—

but in these small, public fractures

that accumulate

until the reflection we see

no longer resembles the promise we made

to ourselves.

And beneath it all,

a question that refuses to quiet:

How much can a soul erode

before it remembers

it was never meant

to be lost?