Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-Langston Hughes (#488)

Beloveds,

With a heavy heart, we heard the news that there would be no indictment in the killing of eighteen-year-old high school graduate Michael Brown. While it will take a few days for us to learn what was said in the Grand Jury, already a different account than previously available is coming to light: the scuffle in the car; the choice Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson made to pull his service revolver rather than his baton, and not to carry a non-lethal stun gun because he had found it uncomfortable.

Let us not stay silent. This faith has dedicated itself, time and time again, to using its hands and weight to pull, to bend, to insist and to cajole that arc into bending toward a humane and just and loving world.

It is inevitable in this work that our hands get cut, that our feet form blisters, that we will want to cover our eyes and ears from seeing and hearing any more evil acts and hurts. It is also true that our hearts break, again and again and again. But we have love on our side, a love that is fierce and unyielding.

As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, we have a dream. As Langston Hughes reminds us in our hymnal, we cannot let go of that dream or all is lost. So we invite you to take a minute of stillness, and call up the divine light within you. Find solace in your connections to All Souls friends, to the usher you saw but don’t know on Sunday, to members of the choir, to the person you stood next to in coffee hour, and worked alongside during the Thanksgiving food drive. See that the light within you connects to the neighbor you do not know well, to Unitarian Universalists in Ferguson, across the United States and around the world, to the mosque and synagogue and church within your community; to the police officers in your own family.

Please say a prayer for the policewomen and policemen who are appalled to find themselves in situations not of their making, and for those who harbor deep in their souls hateful thoughts and feelings for those they have sworn to protect. Say a prayer for Michael Brown’s family, and his community — and all the young Black and Brown boys and men who walk their streets every day in fear.

There is nothing but freedom in that land where we’re bound. Come, let us continue our journey. — Rev. Patrice

First published on All Souls Church