Out Loud

With heavy heart, I listened to the news this morning of the bombings in Belgium. Will we ever find our way through to respect for one another?

May we say a prayerful meditation today, to remember those who have died and been injured, and to say a prayer for their families.

May we say a prayer for the mothers and fathers of the bombers. At one time, they held their precious babies in their arms and hoped their lives would unfold like the beauty of a rose, and their souls be touched by holiness.

This, in the name of the Spirit of Life and Love.

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

The days are turning cooler, cold already in places, though still balmy in others. It is that time of year when earth forces itself upon our consciousness, its beauty calling us to stop in awe and appreciate the golden and red-hued leaves. It is that time of year when we wonder if the frost will come and take away the last of the strawberries. It is that time when we begin to think that the chill will finally stop the growth of weeds, and foraging ants.

We may be missing the loss of hot days, shorts, fresh-squeezed lemonade, the smell of sun-warmed, mowed grass. Revel in these days. Revel in the feelings that earth arouses in us. It is a gift to be alive. We are a gift to each other. May we be a gift to earth.