Forgive them Lord, we pray...

Dear God, 
we declare here by faith 
what we have sometimes
found so hard to do in fact 
that we unconditionally forgive 
those of your children
who over centuries past
have treated us
as less than human and,
through a long and painful history
of slavery and colonialism,
segregation and apartheid,
imperialism and exploitation,
have hated us and abused us,
scorned us and excluded us,
oppressed us and killed us,
for no other reason
than that our skin
was of a darker hew
than their own.
But now we understand
that what they did to us
was driven
not so much by hate
as by fear
and so,
instead of hating them,
we choose to embrace them
and offer to be used by you
to help them
to deal with this fear
and find instead
a new love for themselves
and for others,
even those not like them
and, in doing so,
to discover once again
what it is
to be truly and
fully human,
Amen.