A Prayer for “World Fix”

An administration official confirms Bush’s planned appearance Saturday evening in the talks involving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Group of 20 countries. The meeting not far from the White House is intended to help bolster the image of international cooperation in dealing with the economic crisis. AP

May God bless President Bush and each of our leaders–at home and abroad– as we struggle through these perplexing and dismal days. We solicit the Almighty to heal our bent world.

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
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And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins