Say a Prayer

It is not Paris we should pray for.

It is the world. It is a world in which Beirut,

reeling from bombings two days before Paris,

is not covered in the press.

A world in which a bomb goes off at a funeral in Baghdad

and not one person's status update says "Baghdad", 

because not one white person died in that fire.

Pray for the world

that blames a refuge crisis for a terrorist attack.

That does not pause to differentiate between the attacker

and the person running from the very same thing you are.

Pray for a world

where people walking across countries for months,

their only belongings upon their backs,

are told they have no place to go.

Say a prayer for Paris by all means,

but pray more,

for the world that does not have a prayer

for those who no longer have a home to defend.

For a world that is failling apart in all corners,

and not simply in the towers and cafes we find so familiar. 

Asha Sehgal