This was written because my friend Archer asked me to write for Book. Originally written for the Firefly Friday Challenge, the topic was something that occurred during or immediately after the pilot 'Serenity'. No beta so the errors are all mine. The prayer is adapted from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer circa 1662. 535 Words.

A Prayer For Injured Children

Book stood with bowed head in the cold infirmary light, alone with two injured children. He strove to empty his mind and his heart of every vestige of anger. He was seeking the perfect stillness of spirit he had been taught to achieve in the monastery, as the prelude to approaching God as a prayerful supplicant.

‘Almighty God, and merciful Father, to whom alone belong the issues of life and of death: Look down from Heaven, we humbly beseech thee, with the eyes of mercy Upon these children, now lying upon the beds of their injury.’

He clasped the hand of the child named Kaylee whose innocent goodness had been such a beacon of light, that she had beckoned him to this ship called Serenity, as a lighthouse welcomes weary sailors home from the sea. He sorrowed for the pain of her body which he knew of old, and offered the struggle to empty himself of the desire for revenge to which most of his six decades of life had conditioned him, as a gift to the Son of Man. Whose anger at the money changers demonstrated his kinship with all who have thirsted for vengeance, and whose final act of forgiveness at Golgotha gave him hope of his own redemption.

‘Visit them, 0 Lord, with thy salvation; deliver them in thy good appointed time from their pain of body, mind, and spirit, and save their souls for thy mercies' sake.’

He looked with the eyes of compassion and pity, on the child called River whose injuries were of the mind and spirit, but no less real for their intangible nature. He repented his own manifold sins, which had left invisible scars on other innocent children and vowed to seek forgiveness by dedicating his life to the protection of these innocents.

‘Let it be thy pleasure to prolong their days here on earth, that they may live to praise thee, and be instruments of thy glory, by serving thee faithfully, and doing good in their generation.'

He sought to open his heart to the word of God, that he might be an instrument of His will, here in the Black. Recognizing that in leaving the monastery, and in choosing to re-enter the world, he had left behind the surcease of simple theology and entered a ‘verse where his faith would be tested on an hourly basis.

‘Grant this, 0 Lord, for thy mercies' sake, in the name of thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.’

As he contemplated his own weakness as a vessel whom it had pleased God to place as his servant upon this ship and among these, his children; he felt the gentle stirring of the child's hand in his. The recognition in her eyes and her gentle pain filled smile was a merciful God's answer to his heartfelt prayer and proof again, of His loving care for His faithful children. As he helped her to sit up in the narrow confines of the infirmary bed, he heard the metallic pounding of running steps approaching from the cargo bay ladder.

Historical note: Golgotha is the common name of the spot where Jesus was crucified. It is interpreted by the evangelists as meaning "the place of a skull" (Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17), it is synonymous with Calvary