Soul of the Citizen: Prayers For A Divided Nation - Christian Nonfiction by Mischa Field ➱ Book Tour with Giveaway

 

Soul of the Citizen: Prayers For A Divided Nation

by Mischa Field

Genre: Christian Nonfiction 

Crisis times call for leadership.
Corrupt times call for integrity.
These times call for a move of God, and a move of God calls for you.

Soul of the Citizen: Prayers for a Divided Nation, by Mischa Field, is the cry of a burdened heart refusing to give up on neighbor or neighborhood or nation. It is a collection of prayers for leaders and followers, for parents and children, for shepherds and flocks, and for you and your enemy.

A biblical scribe for modern times, Field offers the reader a word of hope and a call to action. This book is for anyone looking to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God in a time drowning in accusation and ambiguity.

If you long to protect your peace in times of conflict, this book is for you.
If you long to live ethically and authentically in times of struggle, this book is for you.
If you are moved to pray that God would do a new thing in the life of this nation, this book is for you.

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Introduction: A Call to Prayer

The prayers in this book come as a response to a year like no other. 

We have experienced a global pandemic that, as of November 2, 2021, has taken over 5 million lives, more than 767,000 in this nation alone. We have 4 percent of the world’s population, but 19 percent of its coronavirus cases, and 15 percent of its deaths. Conditions are improving in some places but surging in others, and each round of relaxed standards leads to predictable spikes. The disease continues to take a staggering toll.  And things may get worse before they get better. 

We have seen a cry for justice triggered by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among others. And things may get worse before they get better. 

We have endured a bitterly contentious election season. And now we find ourselves embroiled in a unique moment in American history. On January 6, 2021, as Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 election, hundreds rioted in the nation’s capital. They broke windows, damaged property, occupied the House and Senate chambers and congressional offices, and erected a noose, chanting for the assassination of, among others, Vice President Mike Pence. Some used flagpoles as weapons and beat police officers. Others, armed with flex cuffs, appeared to have been prepared to take hostages.  Court filings suggest people “came prepared with weapons, gas masks, ballistic vests, and zip ties.”   More than six hundred people have been charged with crimes, with at least sixty pleading guilty.  The riot resulted in five deaths and the injury of over 140 Capitol Police, and an unknown number of rioters.  

The details of that day continue to emerge. Congressional hearings have begun, and more will come. Clearly, however, we have reached a new boiling point in this simmering crisis of the past thirteen, sixty, 160, and 400 years. We are the United States, but a divided people. And as we shout across dividing lines, we indict the darkness in our hearts.

We critique corrupt politicians and a divisive media, and perhaps we should. We rail against broken institutions and predatory organizations, and possibly we are right. We demand consequences for those who would subvert democracy, and surely, we must. But each of these people and groups is only stirring a darkness already within us. The forces of evil seek to awaken the evil in us.

Many have spoken, over the last few years, of a fight for the soul of the nation. And that fight begins in 330 million individual hearts. It grows in 330 million purpose-filled lives, each with the capacity to serve the greater good or stir far greater harm.

The soul is the seat of the mind, the will, and the emotions. 

We must fight for the soul of the citizen. 

The Cornell Law Dictionary defines a citizen as “a person who, by place of birth, nationality of one or both parents, or naturalization is granted full rights and responsibilities as a member of a nation or political community.”  

We often talk in this era about citizenship: who has it, who should get the opportunity to obtain it, and the rights and responsibilities that it affords. We talk about free speech and paying taxes. We talk about obeying laws. We talk less about the heart conditions that drive our conduct, the mindsets, decisions, and feelings that move us.

We talk about free will but not goodwill. We talk about being great, but not the greater good. We talk about the danger around us, but not the danger within. As praying people, we must contend with all of it. 

That is the burden God gave me, in earnest, three years ago, to pray that the cultural, political, and ultimately spiritual war that has enveloped this nation does not devour its people. The prayers in this book reflect a type of spiritual diary. They emerged from specific moments, inspired by specific events while meditating on specific Scripture, but they speak to the life of the soul. They speak through the help of the Holy Spirit. As such, their meaning for you might be different than it was for me. I invite you to explore them as you see fit, whether you pray one prayer a day or the same prayer for eighty days. I don’t know what God has for you. I do know that he has you reading these words for a reason, so I welcome you to the process of discovering it. As we pray concerning leadership, service, vision, justice, ethics, faith, and the condition of our souls, we are praying for people. One by one. Mind by mind. Heart by heart.

Please join me in this fight. Let us pray together.

 

SAMPLE 2

A Prayer for the Soul of the Nation

May we spend more time in prayer than in rage. May we spend more time in meditation than consuming the news. May we trust you with every outcome. Lord, we need your help.

Father, I thank you for clear priorities. May we be clear in putting God over money. 

Jesus was. He said: You cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24 NIV). Forgive us for desperately trying. 

Forgive us for attempting to twist your words to sanctify our greed. This is exactly what you warned us against.

May we be clear in putting the public good before our personal progress. May we protect the individual’s rights without exalting individual wants. 

We see leadership failure throughout the world. May we, in this moment, demonstrate servant leadership by being the church. May we serve, love, intercede, advocate and protect, instead of reveling in justified selfishness, whether for profits or our tribalized interpretations of justice.

As Emma Lazarus said, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

May we never detach from the moment. May we never harden our hearts to the cries of the people. May we repent of our selfishness today. 

We will face many tough decisions in the days ahead. May love drive all of them. Not fear. Not finance.

May our love for you and your people empower us to hear from you and to make decisions that will please you. May our motives be unimpeachable. May our focus be perfect. May our agenda be yours. 

Crisis reveals character. As much as anything, this pandemic has exposed our selfishness. We have infected each other—because my bills were more real than your health, because my lifestyle was more important than your safety, because my recreation was more important than your survival.

And Father, right now, I lift up this nation, and I lift up your people within it as we endure a crisis perhaps like none we’ve ever seen.

I lift up our elders. I pray for their safety. I pray for their peace. May this storm pass over them, Father. May they not find themselves subject to calls to sacrifice their lives for someone else’s bottom line.

I lift up people who have lost their jobs, and may find themselves needing the love of a neighbor that isn’t presently there.

I pray for society today. I pray for the part of us that is increasingly harsh, increasingly callous to the suffering of others. I mourn the death of empathy. May we repent for participating in the hardening of our hearts. 

Forgive us for any person of conscience who has decided if the enemy lacks principles, we should follow suit. Forgive us for letting scoundrels dictate the terms of engagement. Forgive us for practicing situational ethics. Forgive us for being satisfied with the standard of what someone else can prove rather than what we know we did. There is such a thing as honor. 

We should be trustworthy to call our own fouls. We are not. Forgive us for needing a referee in our relationships. We should be able to engage in conflict resolution, arbitration, and compromise. We have, however, become so adept at lying to ourselves that we are all convinced of our own righteousness, alternately baffled and enraged that anyone would think differently than we do. 

Have mercy on any part of us that shrugs at danger far away. Forgive us for ignoring danger in other countries – they’re our neighbors. Forgive us for ignoring danger to other races: they’re our brothers and sisters. Forgive us for ignoring epidemics past, because they never reached our shores. 

Forgive us for being casual even now because sickness hasn’t hit someone we know. Forgive us for ignoring this plague as something that affects other generations, for making it the subject of jokes, for asking why we should be concerned about their fate or asking what we stand to gain if we help.

Have mercy on us for prioritizing profits over life. Breathe life into the souls of your people. Convict them. May we recognize that when our response to rudeness is to celebrate someone’s death, we have died a little as well.

Have mercy on us for attempting to market the idea of elder self-sacrifice for the hope of future prosperity. As if it were not an inherently wicked idea. As if we could control who this pandemic will affect. As if people in their twenties and thirties and forties weren’t also dying. As if a massive health crisis will not also destroy our economy.

Forgive us for every effort we have made to monetize life. Your work is sacred, and I thank you for it.

In Jesus’s name. 

Amen. 

SAMPLE 3 

A Prayer for Freedom from Unforgiveness 

May this be the year of canceled debts. May it be the season of released grievance. So many of us walk around compiling lifelong ledgers of unresolved slights, a full collection of axes to grind. May we lead, boldly, in holding none of them.

May we, instead, walk in freedom. May we engage in a consecration of release. May this be a Jubilee Year for trespasses, great and small. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

May the urge to pay back an offense succumb to a greater will to pay forward a blessing. To pray forward a blessing. To bless those who curse us. May we not pay it back. May we pray it forward.

Open our hearts to trust people worthy of it. More importantly, open our hearts to trust you working in them. Because none of us are worthy.

Grow us in hope. Embolden us to dream. Empower us to see the light where others may only see darkness. Use us to banish despair, as those who speak love, life, and light, into dark places.

We pray in Jesus’s name. 

Amen.

 

3.

A Prayer for Honesty and Compassion in Times of Struggle

May we never traffic in marketing that masquerades as transparency. May we mature past the compulsion to testify that through dotted Is and crossed Ts, we have assisted you in blessing us.

Instead, may we boldly admit that we can’t, but you can. That we couldn’t, but you did. That by your grace, our stubborn acts and bright ideas did not ruin us. And may our friends and followers draw strength from our struggles. May they, too, speak truth. Courageously. Unapologetically.

May a new witness of truth, honor, justice, purity, beauty, and praiseworthiness arise wherever the shrewd seek to manipulate institutions for personal gain. Like a vaccine, may the seeds of corporate sickness provoke a systemic response that brings new immunity to nonsense.

Use us, Father, despite us. Help us to see you in our rivals. Help us to see you in our enemies. May there be no borders to our grace, no districts that define our eyes of faith, no walls at which our compassion ends.

Thank you that your power to work good from evil plans is limitless. 

Whether they are our enemy’s. Or ours. 

Use us, Father. 

We praise you in Jesus’s name. 

Amen.

 

4.

A Prayer for Courage in the Fight of Faith

Today, Father, may we choose to believe your report. No matter how tough the terrain. No matter how bad the prognosis. No matter what those around us say, may we choose to believe your Word.

Thank you for placing believers in spiritual warzones. While fear cries danger, faith declares that you have us here for such a time as this—that you have placed us in the conflict precisely so we might neutralize wicked plans.

We take authority today over every territory you have given us. Whether mental, spiritual, or physical. Internal or external. Personal or relational. Local, national, or global. Right now, for everyone in a battle, we come into agreement with their faith in you. And we claim the victory. In the name of Jesus. 

May we receive both conventional and unconventional wisdom. May we exercise both common and uncommon sense—trusting you every step of the way. 

May faith inform our action. May we pray and then move, believing you for the outcome. Keep us in perfect peace. Keep us in perfect focus. May we keep our eyes on you.

We pray in Jesus’s name.

Amen.

SAMPLE 4 

A Prayer on Private Consecration for Public Service 

As the nation grapples with questions of ethics in leadership, and institutional corruption seems to multiply around us, today we pray for the consecrated life.

May we not defile ourselves with “royal food.” Or royal practice. May we not become mesmerized by material wealth. Our destiny will bring us into contact with powerful people. May access not lead us to excess. As we sojourn with them, may we never forget our purpose.

Jesus said that we could not love both God and money because the love of money would corrupt our loyalties more quickly and profoundly than perhaps anything. In politics, we see that the noblest of intentions can succumb to abuses of power.

May we be mindful of the power of love. And of the potential for financial affection to stir evil within us. As you enlarge our territory, protect us from us.

Thank you that prosperity does not require extravagance. May there be no contradictions in our witness that need to be explained, nothing that looks wrong that we have to justify.

Father, we ask for strong boundaries. May private business not mix with public service. May the habits of kings and dictators never become our own. May we always be accountable to the people we serve, and always be accountable to you.

We are in the world, but not of the world, and yet, unmistakably for the world. You have raised us up to serve, not to be served, to sacrifice for those we lead. Give us the grace to deny ourselves. When temptation arises to compromise, draw us back to an understanding of your plan.

And Father, in our obedience, cause us to shine. Not with the baubles of the world. Not with gauche facsimiles of your favor. May we never attempt to cover our shame with exaggerated wealth. May we be liberated from the compulsion to keep up with the spiritual Joneses. 

We do not need to build monuments to our stature. or put our name on anything. Instead, may we put your name on everything. Likewise, we do not need to pretend we are good at all things, or anything at all. May our testimony never be a collection of Is. May it point to you. 

Thank you, Father, for showing us you can make something out of nothing, great works from small beginnings. Five loaves and two fish can feed a multitude. Five smooth stones can defeat a giant. A carpenter’s kid from Nazareth can save the world.

Every one of us, at one time or another, in one way or another, has been deemed worthless, but you made us worthy. We were filthy, but you cleansed us. We were broken, but you healed us. Exiled. But you welcomed us. Irredeemable. But you purchased and restored us. And you are not done with any of us yet. So we praise you for the process. And we praise you for the promise that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6 ESV).

May we never grow complacent. May we never look to transformation as a lottery we will eventually win. May we instead present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. Not being conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewal of our minds, that by testing we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2 ESV).

Father, make us shine. May we excel in knowledge and understanding in ways that confound experts. May we abound in spiritual gifts. May we be able to understand visions and dreams. Make us indispensable to kings because we can help them make sense of the things of the Spirit. Give us the ability to make mysteries plain. Use us to banish fear and confusion instead of causing it. 

May we bring light to dark places. And may our witness honor you. May those who expect us to be morally, intellectually, or spiritually deficient find us instead equal to any task.

Position us as ministers to the great. Make us healers of the excellent. Use us as counselors to the wise. Raise us up, for such a time as this.

We praise you, in Jesus’s name.

Amen.

  

SAMPLE 5 

A Prayer for Boldness in Sharing Our Faith and Humility in Living It 

Thank you, Father, for people who faithfully represent you. We are not called to be mysterious or untouchable. We are, however, called to be different. 

Jesus hung out with the sinners. He didn’t sin with them. 

May we be unashamed of the gospel. May we preserve sacred things our peers might denigrate as obsolete. Thank you, Father, for the timeless wisdom of your Word. Thank you for people who demonstrate its power by living it. 

Help us change broken thinking. Help us distinguish feelings that protect us from those that deceive. Free us from confusion. And mature your teachers.

May we never dilute the gospel based on the limits of our own experience. Wherever we have not yet experienced the wisdom of your Word, or the power of your Spirit, woe unto us for persuading anyone that it doesn’t really work. 

Likewise, woe unto us for hiding in a fearful traditionalism that sees anything new as not of God. 

You are omnipresent. May we find you in everything you are doing. But may we never arrogantly declare that you are in everything we choose to do. 

We pray in Jesus’s name.

Amen.

 

7.

 A Prayer of Surrender

May we learn, and live your will for our lives: your good, pleasing, and perfect will. May those who have been in rebellion come to repentance. May those who have been dishonest come clean. May those who have been in hiding come forth. May those who have been in exile come home.

May we who have been content with lives of selective obedience come to know the power of surrendering fully. And may each of us, gratefully, joyfully, fearlessly, recognize and reveal these patterns in ourselves. No matter how mature, or sophisticated, or successful, or established we may be. Or may appear.

May our cultivated facades yield to a culture of confession. Not one that declares our wrong right. But one that declares our wrongs righteously. And addresses them lovingly. Repentance and healing. Grace and truth. May we surrender all.

I pray in Jesus's name.

Amen.

 

8.

 A Prayer for Revival: A Prayer for Growth 

Oh, for a move of God in the church, that we would come to know the true power of your Spirit! And that, while acknowledging what God is doing in us, we would not rush to declare it a completed work. Just because God is moving in us does not mean we are ready to move. 

Forgive us the lust that sees how you could use influential people and pushes them to the front the moment they make a decision for you. Forgive us the overconfident impatience that sees career opportunity in calling and rushes to make it happen. Forgive us for approaching the Father’s business as if it were our own.

Forgive us, also, for any way in which our desire to see you exalted in our midst has led to us to look to heal things by saying they’re not there. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. 

May we repent of every way in which church becomes a place for lying: from the lies we learn as youth because the workings of our hearts seem unacceptable to our elders, to the lies we learn as adults. Because “too blessed to be stressed” sounds better than “believing God, but crying every night.” Or “having nightmares.” Or living them.

May we never abuse people by denying them the opportunity to grow. To heal. To change.

I pray in Jesus’s name.

Amen.

 

SAMPLE 6 

A Prayer for the Kids: For Today’s Learners and Tomorrow’s Leaders 

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV 

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Proverbs 22:6 NLT 

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

Father, I thank You for the young lions among us. May we delight ourselves in You, and receive the desires of our hearts. May we humble ourselves under Your mighty hand, so that You might exalt us in due season. Protect us from prideful disorientation. May Your anointing never lead us into deception. May the exercise of our gifts not fuel delusions of grandeur. 

Season us. Grow us in our relationships, with You and with people. Prepare us to take responsibility, not just for ourselves but for others. Prepare us to be husbands and wives. Fathers and mothers. Teachers. Leaders. 

May we seek wisdom. Surround us with mentors. Surround us with people who can nurture our maturation and feed our hope.

Prosper the works of our hands. Anoint the fruit of our lips. May we never be satisfied with mediocrity. May fear not block sharing our gifts, or receiving something new. 

May we be faithful in the work. Where we can no longer be faithful, because You are calling us higher, convict us to move. Or move us. 

Thank You for the whiz kids. With too many gifts and not enough time. Gifted to multitask, and drowning in options. The ones who rush past everything on the way to the next. Forgive us our shortcuts father. Because there are no shortcuts to You. 

May we embrace our primary assignment, to run to You. To hide in You. To learn of You. To grow in You. Deepen our consecration. Convict us of dishonesty. Convict us of manipulation. May our lack of power not void our sense of ethics. We serve You. 

May we never suppress our convictions for a paycheck. Convict us to change. Or change us.

I pray for the trailblazers. May we answer the call You have placed upon us. May we lean on You, so that we never buckle from it’s weight. 

May we rise to each occasion, and grow to each moment of truth. May we choose the path of maturation, accepting responsibility for ourselves and our assignments. May we put away childish things. May we make no excuses for the errors of our past. Redeem every one of them for the purpose of teaching. May we use them to lead, but also leave them behind. 

May we embrace the call You have placed upon us. Continue to grow us in the ability to bridge divides. Whenever we stand at a Rehoboam crossroads, may we listen to wise elders, instead of hot-headed peers. 

May we become more like our mentors than our crew. You are raising us up to lead. May we neither get ensnared in following, nor addicted to belonging. We cannot be one of the crowd when You call us to lead it. Convict us to mature. Or mature us.

I pray for the mavericks. The anomalies. The square pegs in round holes. Plug us in. Thank You for each one made in Your image and likeness, uniquely wired to reach new generation. Prosper us in our uniqueness. Grow us in our gifts. Continue to inspire our work. 

I pray for the poets. The philosophers. The artists. Inspire our strength. And our gentleness. May we honor the people who raised us. May we cherish those who nurtured our gifts. May we defend them when they face attacks. Use our creativity and our experience. Use our wisdom and our drive. Use our tenderness and our fire.

Thank You for the ageless child. The kid at heart. Thank You for the one made in Your image and likeness. I thank You for the leader. The warrior. The parent. The sibling. The child. The nurturer. The friend. Use us in mighty ways. Be glorified in our efforts. Make us relevant in our generation. 

Prepare us. And send us forth. To Conquer. To Heal. To break every chain. 

To transcend the dysfunction of our past. To master the challenges of our present. To build a bridge to our future.

I thank You for hearing this prayer.

In Jesus’s name. Amen.

 

SAMPLE 8 

A Prayer for Voices of Truth. A Prayer for Servants of the King. 

Comfort us in our struggles. Mature us in our responsibilities. Grow us in kindness. Grow us in grace.  

May our new assignments inspire us to rise to new levels of accountability. 

Make us into the servants You have ordained for us to be. Give us a heart for the people. The challenging ones. The ungrateful ones. 

Bless us with people who will stretch us to the dimensions You have ordained us to inhabit. We have big shoes to fill. May we grow into them quickly. And then grow out of them.

As we fight the good fight of faith, may we win in the battlefield of the mind. May we win in the marathon of the heart. May we dive into the safari of the soul. And may we come out on the other side of these journeys changed. 

Make us over. Make us into the men and women You have ordained for us to be. Even in our militant determination, soften our hearts.

May we be found faithful. Strengthen us that we might be the backbone of our organizations, the glue of our families, the conscience of our group. When no-one else will stand for You, may we do so in courageous humility. 

Grow us as daughters and sons. May we minister to our parents. Grow us as parents. May we continue to model for our children how to thrive in the worlds we inhabit. Grow us as husbands and wives. May we serve, love, honor, and protect our spouses. Use us for Your glory.

Thank You for Your leaders. May we make of each moment not what we have always wanted, but what You have always planned. 

May we become, not the leaders we have imagined, but the leaders You have ordained. 

May we be undeterred by the shadows of our heroes, unswayed by the paths of our rivals. May we be unshaken by the pressure of our peers, and unmoved by the fears of our families. May we be undistracted by the desires of our followers. May we remain, steadfast, through it all.

Let us rise, O God, to these new offices You have assigned us. Make us over. You have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. May we walk in the fullness of the anointing. 

Elevate us for this season. And then elevate us past this season. May the disappointment of our predecessors not shape our expectations. May their jealousy not shrink our vision. May their failings not trace our dreams. Even so, may our own sense of entitlement never hinder Your plans for us. Season us. Grow us.

Thank You for drawing us out of our cocoons, and drawing purpose out of us. Manifest the butterfly. 

Continue to bring people into our lives who can mentor us. Bring teachers into our lives who can call us higher. May we never settle for good enough.

 May we develop our gifts. And may we liberate them from the cage of context. You have not limited us to one lane, genre, circle, culture, or corporation. May we use our gifts to be everything You are calling us to be.

Thank You for voices of truth. May we never be deceived by smooth talkers. May we never be silenced by our own success. 

May we not fall into traps laid by the Enemy. May we continue to operate in wisdom and power. May we not play into enemy hands. Bring us wisdom and accountability. 

As we grow in our gifts, may we never become mercenaries. May hunger for money not lead us into error. May we always stand for truth.

May we stand on our convictions. Arrest us wherever our ambitions overshadow our assignment. Stop us wherever we become more important than the people You have called us to serve. May we move when You tell us to move. And if not, move us. 

May we be consistent but authentic. May we not exploit other people’s gifts, or silence their voices, or take their uniqueness for granted. May we never pretend to be something we are not.

Grow us in empathy. Anoint us to connect with people whose circumstances are unlike our own. 

May we be about our Father’s business. May we use our resources and our voices wisely. May we rise up to defeat wicked plans, not rise up to facilitate them. 

May we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with You.

I pray, in Jesus’s name. Amen.

What inspired you to write this book?

As I note in the introduction to the book, Soul of the Citizen constitutes a type of spiritual diary. It started out as a daily exercise of praying through the news of the day, and in the digital age, there are no slow news days. Our political, cultural, ethical, and moral crises emerge daily, because our political, cultural, ethical, and moral conflicts lie at the core of our national identity. We are United States, but divided people. We are vessels of hope in oceans of despair. We are wonderful but wounded. And we tend to allow our wounds to spill onto everyone around us. If we are praying people, we always have reason to pray.  

For me prayer has always been a way of processing life: joys and concerns, hopes and fears, visions and dreams. This book was my way of grieving through the tumultuous politics of the past 7 years. The more compromised digital communication became, the more time I spent in prayer. One dubious honor I probably share with most people who communicate publicly is that I have been excoriated by critics from both sides of any given spectrum, sometimes for coherent reasons, and sometimes before they even understand what I am saying.

Jesus challenged his followers to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that despitefully used them.  I’m interested in just what that looks like in a 21st Century context.  Love desires to benefit others at the expense of self. Love sacrifices, gives, hopes, and perseveres.  When we think about loving people, especially people we don’t know or don’t like, what does it inspire us to do? Sometimes love looks like public service. Sometimes it looks like accountability or an apology. Sometimes it looks like boundaries, a refusal to participate in someone else’s pathology. If we recognize that there is spiritual sickness in the land, that we are dealing with a nation of wounded souls, and are wounded ourselves, then we can have better conversations, and take more productive action in attempting to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

In Matthew 19, Jesus told critics trying to stump him with a question about divorce that the only reason for divorce was hardness of heart. Reconciliation, endurance, and growth are all possible. In our hard-heartedness, however, we often choose to end things.

This nation marries diverse groups of people in a grand civic experiment. One trend we see in this moment is a clamor for civic divorce. Red states want to divorce blue states. Urban areas want to divorce rural ones. Young people want their elders to get out of the way. And people who have long held disproportionate power respond to the call to share with terrified outrage. Across every division, we see people daydreaming of a country in which their neighbors don’t exist instead of answering God’s call to love them. This, I would argue, is a jaded retreat. It is a dereliction of duty. And nothing good comes of it.

I believe we can do better. That is the heart of this book.

Mischa Field is an ordained reverend who has practiced ministry in Brooklyn for 21 years. His writing explores the intersection of Divinity and Humanity: Faith, Identity, Culture, and the Soul. His heart for hurting people and broken institutions fuel his determination to rebuild both.

A graduate of Amherst College and Alliance Theological Seminary, with degrees in film, writing, and urban ministry, and a background in journalism, he finds consistent joy in the mysteries of faith, consistent humility in attempting to practice them, and constant wonder in God’s ability to accomplish perfect things with perfect combinations of imperfect people.

A native of Brattleboro, Vermont, he lives in Queens with Lori, his wife of 15 years. Soul of the Citizen is his first book.

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