Prayer Service For Peace Urges Change
The message of a deep desire for change permeated the July 14 Prayer Service for Peace in our Community at the C.K. Newsome Community Center in Evansville. Religious and civic leaders joined the public to pray for peace and unity due to recent events around the nation, and to remember those who have lost their lives after shootings earlier this month.
As the service began, Rev. Veltri Taylor, Pastor of First Ebenezer Baptist Church, welcomed everyone and shared news of a deadly attack in Nice, France. She and other community religious leaders, including Father Bernie Etienne, Diocesan Vicar General and Pastor of Evansville’s Holy Rosary Parish, shared their feelings of grief and helplessness throughout the service.
“As the events have unfolded over the past week, I was tempted into some hopelessness,” Father Etienne said. “I was tempted to some feelings of helplessness in the midst of that. And then I was surprised to become aware within myself, in my small part, of how I contribute to that. We can’t look at what happened in Dallas and have the view that ‘they’ have a problem and ‘they’ need to change. It really starts with us.”
Father Etienne shared a litany of non-violence written and prayed for years by the Sisters of Providence in St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind. “It speaks very much to a starting point for each of us,” he said. ”May we recognize the part that we play and the things we might embrace and change.”
The 90-minute service included comments from Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and Evansville Police Capt. Andy Chandler. Father Jay Davidson, Administrator of All Saints Parish in Evansville, led the assembly in directed prayer time.
The Rev. Todd Robertson, pastor of Liberty Missionary Baptist Church and president of the Baptist Ministers and Deacons Alliance of Evansville, said one problem is that we are not hearing one another. We talk at one another but have lost the ability to truly communicate.
"A house divided amongst itself cannot stand," Robertson said.
Members of the community were asked to fill out response cards with questions, concerns and thoughts on what more could be done in Evansville and what needs to be addressed.
