One Difficult Week after Another

Thank you for the 50+ responses to our parish survey last week. The results were encouraging of our current course and we are moving forward with plans for an outdoor worship service in early August.

This has certainly been a hard week. We seem to be piling hard weeks upon one another this year. But I do not necessarily wish it away either. The Holy Spirit works in peaceful whispers and in loud cries for justice — both our Mediator and our Advocate.

We want to make a sustained effort at Epiphany, with grace and humility, to be open to understanding our society's systems of oppression and the ways we unconsciously participate. Whatever your response has been this last week or two, you are welcome to the conversation to sort it out faithfully in community.

Our faith does not exist in a vacuum separated from the rest of our lives, but informs our worldview, our political and economic choices as well as our social connections and actions.

As a beginning, I would encourage you to spend fifteen minutes watching a public address given by Rachel Cargle, a professor and public activist. I found it explains and contextualizes so well the moment we are witnessing and gives action steps. Likewise, if you struggle to understand what white privilege is and how it operates in your life without you even knowing, I found this exercise with teens very illustrative. There are many more resources and we'll make those available as time goes on.

Our first Summer Book Series selection will be a choice: So You Want To Talk About Race or Me and White Supremacy to be discussed on July 7. Choose one (or read both) and we'll discuss each in July. We'll follow that How to be An Anti-Racist to be discussed on August 18.

If you prefer movies, the movie adaptation of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is streaming for free for the month of June on all major platforms (Amazon Prime, Apple tv, etc). We might schedule a movie discussion as well as our book groups.

Keep praying. May God keep opening our hearts to new and other voices. Keep listening — God is still speaking. Keep doing small things to make a difference. Let's keep being the people of justice, hope and love we have always been.

Yours in Christ, Rev'd Jen