Words from the World

WEEK 8

Monday

Faith

In North Carolina, sound of chainsaws brings hope as faith-based workers clear roads. October 2, 2024,Religion News Service By Bob Smietana

In the days since Hurricane Helene swept through mostly rural areas of nine states, Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster Service, has been working to make plans for how to best respond, despite spotty phone service due to downed cell towers and roads and bridges that have been washed out or blocked by fallen trees.

On Tuesday, King was cheered as disaster relief workers from Mennonite communities around Ohio and Pennsylvania arrived outside Asheville, North Carolina, with chainsaws and earth-moving equipment to help clear the back roads as government services focus on main thoroughfares as well as search and rescue. “It’s good to hear sounds of chainsaws bringing hope,” he said. …

“It’s hard to say how long this will continue,” he said. “A disaster this complex, with roads and bridges washed out, there’s still communities that are hard to get to.” …

King suspects that a full recovery will take years, given the scope of damage. He compares the devastation of Helene to that of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005.

One of King’s tasks this week is to locate a long-term site where Mennonite disaster volunteers can be housed as they help with cleanup and rebuilding over the long haul.

“What we will be looking for is a place we can set up for three to four years,” King said.

Tuesday

Solitude

From Religion News Service, October 2, 2024. By David Crary and Giovanna Dell'orto

It's a 'very difficult time' for U.S. Jews as High Holy Days and Oct. 7 anniversary coincide

Known as “The Days of Awe,” Judaism’s High Holy Days — which begin on Wednesday — annually provide an emotional mix of celebration, introspection and atonement for Jews around the world.

This year, for many, the emotions will be extraordinarily powerful, given that the midpoint of the 10 days spanning Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is Oct. 7 — the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and triggered the still-ongoing war in Gaza.

For Jews in the U.S. … the past 12 months have been challenging in many ways. … There’s been a surge in antisemitic incidents, and many college campuses were wracked by divisive pro-Palestinian protests. Jews grieved for Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas; many also are grieving for the tens of thousands of Palestinians subsequently killed during Israeli’s military offensive in Gaza.

“It’s been a very difficult time, the most difficult time for a Jew in America that I’ve been alive,” said Gayle Pomerantz, senior rabbi at Miami Beach’s Temple Beth Sholom. “I’m hoping that the holidays will help to contextualize our suffering and not let it overtake us.” …

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said the confluence of the Holy Days and the Oct. 7 anniversary created “an impossible moment” for rabbis ministering to their congregations.

He noted that liturgy for Rosh Hashana – the Jewish New Year – includes posing the question, “Who will live and who will die (in the coming year)?”

“That’s going to resonate in a different way this year, for certain,” Jacobs said, evoking Oct. 7 as “a day of unbelievable grief in a war that is not only not ending, but maybe expanding.”

Wednesday

Peace

“Do Not Lost Heart” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

Thursday

Vigilance

For Those Who Doomscroll

Still God,

We confess we are addicted to pessimism. Although we rarely name it as such, so much of our attention is devoted to negativity. Show us how we use technology to soothe and stir the aches in us. Keep us from turning control over to our anxiety, that it would no longer feed itself with news of tragedy and impending disaster. It is easy to become lost, buried in the quicksand of digital catastrophe. Draw our attention upward. Guide us to look away habitually; and not just away, but up at the sky, the grass, the table. Guide us inward as well. Acquaint us with goodness again. In the world, and in ourselves. Let us follow the children, freed from the grip of seriousness. Renew our playfulness. Lead us into wise rhythms of engagement, retreating to rest and breathe. Remind us that there is much the world needs, including our attention to atrocity—but if we watch the world burn for long enough, the fire will become our only reality. Amen.

Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley. Copyright © 2024 by Cole Arthur Riley. https://www.amazon.com/Black-Liturgies-Prayers-Meditations-Staying/dp/0593593642

Friday

Vision

Saturday

Bearing Witness

Always We Hope
-- Lao Tzu

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
You have the answer,
You know who you are
And you know what you want.
There is no need
To run outside
For better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window
Rather abide at the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
And see
The way to do
Is to be.

https://familyaffairsandothermatters.com/always-we-hope/