Words from the World
WEEK 6
Monday
Love
Make God’s Unconditional Love Visible
By Henri J. M Nouwen
Whenever, contrary to the world’s vindictiveness,
we love our enemy,
we exhibit something of the perfect love of God, whose will is to bring all human beings together as children of one [Parent.]
Whenever we forgive instead of getting angry at one another,
bless instead of cursing one another,
tend one another’s wounds instead of rubbing salt into them,
hearten instead of discouraging one another,
give hope instead of driving one another to despair,
hug instead of harassing one another,
welcome instead of cold-shouldering one another,
thank instead of criticizing one another,
praise instead of maligning one another . . .
in short, whenever we opt for and not against one another,
we make God’s unconditional love visible;
we are diminishing violence and giving birth to a new community.
From Life of the Beloved by Henri J. M. Nouwen.
Tuesday
Wisdom
Letting Things Be Enough
By Richard Rohr
As some of you know, I’ve transitioned to a form of prayer that I just call “gazing”—gazing without judgment, without analysis, without critique. Yesterday afternoon, a rather mild winter day in Albuquerque, I took my dog Opie out for a little walk. There’s a bench at the other end of the parking lot, and I just sat down there. Opie jumped up next to me, and we just gazed there together from about 3:00 p.m. to almost 4:30 p.m.
I believe gazing is a form of prayer that lets things having no right to draw forth awe, leave us awestruck. I looked at the cracked asphalt. There it is. Why is it there? I don’t know why, but its mere being made me love it, made me appreciate it, made me thank it. I did the same with three dumpsters in the lot. Really! They were ugly and covered with graffiti. Fortunately, the graffiti right on the front says, “I love you!” Facing toward my house, a little graffiti saying, “I love you!” I even looked at the raggedy fence line, torn and repaired. I looked at it until it was at least a little bit beautiful. That’s what kept happening for the whole hour and a half.
It was just beautiful because I let it be beautiful, or God let it be beautiful. I wasn’t looking for answers, I was just a ruminating mind, gazing, and the more I gazed without judgment, without analysis, without critique, the more beautiful everything became.
We didn’t have one of our deep, blue New Mexico skies. It was pale blue but pretty, and it was enough. It was all more than enough. The nakedness of life in its nakedness becomes enough, and even brings forth a kind of praise.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, morning meditation, January 29, 2024, Center for Action and Contemplation. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/everyday-mysticism-weekly-summary/
Wednesday
Darkness
Easter
By Cole Arthur Riley
God who rose, Resurrect us. We’ve belonged to communities, workplaces, and spiritual spaces that have demanded our death far more than they ever advocated for our life. They ask us to “die to self,” the ambiguity of the command like grabbing a knife by its blade. No longer will we mirror the hands of neglect that the world uses daily. Let joy find us today. Remind us that any spirituality which is always death, never resurrection, is a farce. What liberation we taste today, may we crave in full as we refuse to wander back to the chains that once held us. May joy find us. Not a joy absent of story or sorrow but a joy whose allegiance is to memory. A joy that is not quick to forget the agony of Good Friday or dismiss the doubt of Silent Saturday. May we remember and rise to meet hope nonetheless, knowing our liberation is whispering up at us from its empty grave. Amen.
From “Easter” in Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley.
Thursday
Compassion
African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders call for halt to all US funding of Israel
By Adelle M. Banks
February 16, 2024, Religion News Service
The African Methodist Episcopal Church’s top officials have called for the U.S. government to halt all its funding of Israel, citing the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Hamas-Israel war.
“The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church calls on the United States Government to immediately withdraw all funding and other support from Israel,” reads a statement issued on Wednesday (Feb. 14), the 264th anniversary of the birth of the historically Black denomination’s founder, Richard Allen.
“Since October 7, 2023, in retaliation for the brutal murder of 1,139 Israeli citizens by Hamas, Israel has murdered over 28,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. The United States is supporting this mass genocide. This must not be allowed to continue.”
The statement was signed by Bishop Adam J. Richardson, senior bishop of the denomination; Bishop Stafford J.N. Wicker, president of the bishops’ council; Bishop E. Anne Henning Byfield, chair of social action, and Bishop Francine A. Brookins, co-chair of social action.
Bishop Harry L. Seawright, the leader of the AME’s Alabama district, said in a Thursday interview with Religion News Service that he and other bishops also supported the statement, which he said reflects the denomination’s stances on social action.
“We have always tried to take a social stand against injustice, unfair treatment of all people,” he said.
From Religion News Service, February 16, 2024. “African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders call for halt to all US funding of Israel” by Adelle M. Banks. https://religionnews.com/2024/02/16/ame-church-amid-ongoing-mideast-war-urges-halt-of-all-u-s-funding-of-israel/
Friday
Patience
Confession of Faith
By Johanna A. Junker
I believe in a gentle God. I believe in a gentle God who cries with us for all the ways our bodies were raped, destroyed, murdered, broken, unloved, and obliterated.
I believe in Jesus, the Incarnate, Gentle God, who takes our breath away and returns it when we no longer have the strength to keep on living.
I believe in the Soft Spirit that--from the depths--gently visits us to remind us of the sounds of our own voices, our sorrows, the cries of the earth, and the strength we still hold.
I believe in a gentle Church that hears the whispers of the Earth, that feels the pain circulating in its body, that is not indifferent to violence, that believes in the cries of those who denounce this violence at the expense of their lives. I remember those who cry silently because using their voices is not a safe option. …
I believe in the communities that continued to move forward in solidarity, Divine Softness, responsibility, integrity, and coherence to undo the violent configurations of power, patriarchy, misogyny, racism (remembering environmental racism, too), classicism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, pain, abandonment, indifference, and hatred.
I believe in the communion of ancestors, saints, sinners, spirits, and all of creation who have thoughts that they feel and feelings that they think, and who resist hatred and intolerance and come to the tables of communion hand-in-hand in an inclusive way, to follow gently on the path, with an incorrigible joy, with radical and blameless acceptance, in hope and in “terrestrial” coexistence.
Johanna A. Junker, October 2018. From Liturgies from Below: 462 Acts of Worship (Praying with People at the Ends of the World), p. 332.
Saturday
Commitment
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Jo Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
“Perhaps the World Ends Here” from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49622/perhaps-the-world-ends-here