A Confession for Brothers and Sisters

All:
Forgive us
For not being true brothers and sisters
For letting the pollution of this world
Create smoke and mirrors
Distorting our Holy body
Into an object to devour
A thing to look at
And consume
Forgive us for not being
Brothers and sisters

Forgive us for thinking your image
Is simply a masculine expression of power
And forgetting the tenderness in which you gather us
Like hens beneath your wing
Forgive us for not being
Brothers and sisters

Sisters:
Forgive us, the Sisters,
For softening our voice
So we don’t disrupt the powers
For diminishing our worth
For struggling and striving
Fighting misuse of power
With words that aren’t healing
Forgive us for settling
For exposure of injustice
Without desiring restoration
Or instead adopting ignorance
Thinking that might be safer

Forgive us, the Sisters,
For seeing other sisters as a threat
For the times we are the first to enter space
And protect it as our own
Not looking for others
More gifted, strong, equipped
Or young, raw, and undeveloped
And using our power, no matter how scarce
To elevate, prop up, and promote
Our sisters

Forgive us, the sisters,
For needing the gaze
And admiration and acclimation
As a cheap exchange
When we have the gaze of our King
Forgive us for questioning-
What good is it to be this gender?
For believing we are a hindrance,
A snare to mission

Help us, Lord,
To labor, enduring pain
Working with you to see new birth
And restoration
In our communion
Becoming
True Sisters

Brothers:
Forgive us, the Brothers,
For our pride and stubborn hearts
For our misuse of power
Diminishing and casting aside
Our sisters

Forgive us, Lord, for our violence
That comes from our bodies, words, and stories
For the ignorant culture we created
And sustained
Of competition and unrighteous glory
To expand our territory
Sow our spiritual oats
For only making space for those
Who stroke our frail, fractured, and frightened egos
For being a slave to insignificance
And the tender places our stronger sisters expose

Forgive us, the brothers,
For only seeking to relate to women
As a wife, daughter or mother
Forgetting that sisters can see us
And playfully remind us of our ordinariness
In ways a romantic partner
or mother never can

Forgive us for not being first
To place ourselves beneath
Using power to showcase our sisters strength
For abdicating our call to death
So that new life can emerge
Ignoring our sisters who writhe in pain
As they bear the weight
Of our collective sin
In their bodies, sleep, and memories

Help us, Lord,
Bring to our memories
The words, thoughts, and jokes
That diminish our sisters
So we might confess and know your grace
And the gift you embedded
Within the deep love of our sisters
Restore us
As true brothers

All:
Lord, renew our minds
Heal our bodies
Make us know the joy that is found
Within the bond of brothers and sisters
Co-laborers, co-heirs with Christ
Our dear older brother
With him reigning eternally
In union with each other