tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123730599068583492024-03-13T15:44:37.384-04:00St. Pete's RockThis blog is now retired.Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.comBlogger2705125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-17079383609653421922020-07-29T15:52:00.000-04:002020-07-29T15:54:13.089-04:00Talking Racial Reconciliation in the Episcopal Church<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A CONVERSATION WITH SHANEEQUA BROKENLEG: TALKING RACIAL RECONCILIATION AND THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH </div>
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<i>Jul 29 - Written By <a href="https://earthandaltarmag.com/posts?author=56a59bf857eb8d5bf3aa578d">Chris Corbin</a></i> <br />
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<i>Editor’s Note: This interview was edited slightly for clarity and style. </i><br />
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Chris Corbin: Is there anything about your background that brought you to racial reconciliation work?<br />
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Shaneequa Brokenleg: As a person of Color, it's always been something that we do from a very young age. I think you learn about race and hear it talked about early on. Also, in the church context, I didn't realize that The Episcopal Church had white people in it until I went to a convention with my grandpa either in Pierre or Sioux Falls. I actually thought, in my infinite wisdom, that The Episcopal Church was run by the Indian Health Service because everything in the church said IHS—I didn't realize until later that “IHS” was the monogram for Christ. I used to think, “Oh, they care about our physical health, but they also care about our spiritual health.”<br />
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C: You talk about not realizing there were white people in The Episcopal Church and being a person of color. What is your background?<br />
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S: I'm American Indian, specifically I'm Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation. Most of my understanding of The Episcopal Church came from my grandpa who was an Episcopal priest and my uncle who was an Episcopal (and then Orthodox) priest. It was later when I actually lived with my grandparents that I saw, and they talked to me about, racism in the Church. There would be things that would come up, or something would happen, and my grandpa would be angry and my grandma would be angry or hurt. I think as a child I saw disparities around me in my community and then as an adult, in my work as an epidemiologist, I saw systemic health disparities. Research that I did was treated differently than data that came from the state. For example, people might not believe my data even though you know, my data had a sample size of 350 and theirs had a sample size of 15. There was the sense that they just don't think you know what you're doing.<br />
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C: Would you say public health work impacted your approach to doing racial reconciliation work in the church?<br />
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S: Yeah, I think if you come from a Western culture you think things can fit into neat little boxes, but from a Lakota perspective it's really hard to do that. Everything to me is like one gigantic Venn diagram with circles everywhere and they’re all overlapping and they all connect with each other. So, you can't look at physical health without understanding spiritual health or you can't understand the health disparities without looking at the past and the historical trauma that helped create them. In public health one of the things that’s really depressing is that if you know someone’s zip code, you know their life expectancy. COVID is harming people of color disproportionately; that's a symptom of the structural violence and structural racism that exists in our society. <br />
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C: What are some of the struggles, as well as gifts, for the work you do of being Native and thus not fitting into the standard white/Black dichotomy for race in this country?<br />
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S: That's a good question. I think Native people often look for something different in the conversation about race and reconciliation. I think a lot of people of color want equal rights or to be treated equally, but I think because of our specific histories and the fact that we are the first peoples of this land, we often want the rights that we were guaranteed in the treaties, and these are often separate and different from other people’s rights. A lot of that comes into play when you think about land use issues like resource extraction and hunting and fishing rights. In terms of race, some people have the ability to pass or have what we would call “skin privilege.” Then there is the history of some American Indians in the South historically being treated more like white people, creating this conflict between Black and Native folks in that area. It’s played out differently where Natives weren’t treated as white people. Getting back to what gift being Native has brought to this work, I often think about it in terms of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ, “we are all related.” Everyone is my relative and not just people but also all of creation, so we have a responsibility to be a good relative, which I think is the overarching message of the Gospel. I also think about racial reconciliation with the idea or concept of wólakȟota, or “being in right relationship with everything”: right relationship with the Creator, right relationship with ourselves, right relationship with creation, and right relationship with each other. And so, if you're not treating each other as a relative or as a good relative then then you're not in right relationship and not working toward reconciliation.<br />
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As an aside, I should explain the difference between equality and equity because we often talk about desiring equality when we really should be talking about equitable treatment. Equality is when everybody is the same, like if we said we're going to buy everybody a pair of shoes and they're all going to get Nikes® with no regard for size. Equity is when you get a pair of shoes that fit and meet the needs that you have. It’s not just giving out steel-toed Timberland®’s if people need work shoes. Not everybody's a construction worker. That's not going to work for everybody. If you're a nurse you're going to need those fancy big soled nurse’s shoes. If you work in an office, you’ll probably need dress shoes. <br />
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C: Have you found that being Native, and being specifically Lakota, has certain challenges in entering into discourse about racial reconciliation in The Episcopal Church?<br />
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S: Yeah—I think our Church has too often thought of race as basically a Black and white thing. I think the other thing is American Indians make up such a small portion of the entire population as a whole that often our voice gets silenced. Here’s a concrete example: the police officer who murdered George Floyd also murdered an Indigenous person years before and it didn't get the same hearing I think that George Floyd is getting. It’s obviously not a competition of who's oppressed more or anything, but had they taken that death seriously at the time and had then-Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar actually prosecuted the officer, George Floyd might not have ever been killed in the first place. I also think sometimes the rural nature of Indian Country can also silence the voices a little bit more. There's this whole wealth of information and knowledge and learning and theology from a Native perspective, rooted in our way of life that The Episcopal Church hasn't really tapped into but could really learn and benefit from. <br />
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C: What led you from the public health world into ordained ministry, and do you see some path from public health to racial reconciliation? <br />
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S: I actually started the discernment process in Minnesota, but I just wasn't done by the time I finished college, so the bishop said I could go to seminary, but if I didn’t get through discernment, I would have just wasted my time. And so, I was like “Okay, well, I'll do something else.” I actually missed the deadline to apply for the social work program and that's how I ended up in public health. Then when I was in Wisconsin doing public health and being an epidemiologist, that call started to come back up again. And then I recognized the disparity all around me and saw that there were almost no clergy of color. How was it that our churches don’t reflect the communities they're in? I was at a church right next to a reservation and I was the only person of color in that congregation. It's not that they don't want to do it, it’s more that these communities are like, “We really would love to work with the Indigenous people, but we just don't know how to do that and we don't know what to do.” They need somebody to shepherd that process. Part of where I see my connection to a lot of ministry and work is my role as a wíŋtke, which is a third gender in Lakota culture. Traditionally we walked between the masculine and feminine and the natural and supernatural and were kind of healers. I see public health being like physical healing while my role as a priest in the Church as the spiritual healing. I think you need to heal the person as a whole in both those areas if you actually want to create change. My Lakota name is the same as my grandfather: Tȟokȟála Eháke—Last Warrior, or, more accurately, last member of the kitfox warrior society. This is the person in battle who stays behind so that others can get away. I think of who’s being left behind and how I can inspire and empower them, and ultimately how we can transform things so that no one’s left behind.<br />
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C: I want to own that in this piece a white person is interviewing a person of color about educating me and other white people on these issues, and I know that this can easily become an unhelpful and damaging dynamic. How can white people enter fruitfully into these kinds of dialogues in a way that is respectful and non-exploitative?<br />
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S: That's a really good question. I think in any culture in any community, there are people that will act as liaisons. Look in different communities to find those folks first because they're the ones who will be able to usher you through. It’s similar to how if you wanted to become a Christian there will be catechists who would help you rather than just finding any generic person in church who may feel like they barely know how to be a Christian themself. But I think in terms of communities of color there's going to be folks who sort of act as go-betweens for the communities and other cultures. As you're building relationships with people of other ethnicities and cultures, figure out what it is that you have in common and what are things that you can do together. Do you see someone who’s different from you going fishing every time you’re fishing? Maybe you ask them about how they cook their fish, if they like to cook or even invite them over for a fish fry. Then it’s not putting the onus in the relationship on race, which will still probably come up naturally. Also, I think as you’re building relationships don't expect them to fit into what your mold for a relationship looks like, because that's often a mistake that we make<br />
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Again, think about where your goal is for building a relationship. If your goal for building a relationship is that you’re white and they’re a person of color, that's probably not going to work the best. But if your goal is they’re in your neighborhood and you both care about your neighborhood, or, maybe, you both like gardening, or you want to invite them to something that you’re doing, that's going to provide a much better foundation. These two points, building authentic relationships, and not having preconceived expectations about that relationship, came together for me in Watertown (SD). They asked me to work with the drug court, and I went there expecting something like, “Now, I'm going to be doing a 12-step Eucharist, and I'm going to be doing spiritual direction,” but when I shared my ideas with them, they didn't like any of the ones that I had expected. Instead, they needed what was at the very bottom of my list: help with financial literacy and help with healthy relationships. <br />
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C: When we’re dealing with racial reconciliation in The Episcopal Church, which is about 90% white, we’re often talking about reconciling with people who are not part of the body or have been marginalized in our communities. Do you have any suggestions for well-meaning white people who are just not accustomed to thinking about race or primarily want to think about racial reconciliation as being “color blind?” <br />
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S: Let me first mention something for racial reconciliation that The Episcopal Church does have, namely Building Beloved Community. In it there are four steps: Proclaiming the Dream, Telling the Truth, Repairing the Breach, and Practicing the Way of Love. I think all of those things again come down to relationships. Let me tell you some stories. As a wíŋkte I have this walking between the worlds thing, but that also comes from being half white and half Native. I remember with my white Grandma one of her favorite things was to say, “I just don't see color; I don't even know that my Black friend, Janice, is Black.” To this I was always like “Well, Grandma, she wouldn't be your Black friend Janice if you didn't know she was Black.” I think many well-meaning folks are aware that racism exists and they think the solution is to pretend there's no such thing as race or to ignore it, but that fails to see one’s full humanity or fails to see the person as a whole. So, it’s not that we don't want to see colors—it’s that we need to see all colors and we need to see them all as beautiful. I sometimes talk about people as flowers and each petal of their flower is like a part of their identity. And so, one of the petals might be race, another one might be ethnicity. Another one might be socioeconomic status or gender or class, and I think we need to see people as a whole flower and not just as one of their petals. Similarly, what we've done as a church and as a society is said that some flowers are more beautiful than others and we're only going to care about those flowers and those pedals, which is also profoundly unhelpful. <br />
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C: It sounds like in part what you're saying is that to talk about and recognize race is not to make someone just their race. <br />
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S: Right, and that we can't pretend that it's not there because it is, and we have to talk about it. If you think about things like domestic violence or sexual abuse or addiction, the reason why they can fester is because there’s this unwritten rule that we don't talk about it. We need to bring it out in the open and talk about racism. One of the things I wish we did better as a society, but especially as a church, is really work on how to talk to people who think differently from us—where else could you possibly talk about something controversial or difficult if not in the church? Church should be the place where you could talk about whatever and be able to be heard and listened to while also hearing and listening to others. That dialogue helps you build relationships and transformation take place because you stop seeing somebody as an object, as a Black man, and begin to see them as George Floyd, a father, somebody who was active in their church: You can change that through that dialogue, through that engaging with each other. <br />
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C: As we’re talking about the often-unacknowledged reality of race and ethnicity, this may be a place to speak a little more about the concepts of race and ethnicity. I’ve been told, and have seen, that Lakota culture tends to see what we may call race and ethnicity much more fluidly than Western cultures do, and I wonder if that could be a helpful place to jump into the conversation? <br />
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S: I think in terms of how we culturally think about who is and who is not Lakota, that's very true. It's much more fluid. It's not based on skin tone or biology (if there even is such a thing as biological race, which I don't think there is). In our culture, you are Lakota if you live your life as a Lakota person and are a member of the community. Do you exemplify the values of the community? Are you engaging in community life as a member? This is especially exemplified with the huŋká relative where we adopt certain people to become relatives. You may even think of formation as a Lakota person as similar to how you were formed as a Christian. That is how we tend to think of it. Blood-quantum was an imposition by outsiders as a way actually of trying to make Native Americans cease to exist. <br />
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C: What is Blood Quantum?<br />
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S: It's a very unfortunate thing. It’s basically the idea that in order to be considered Native you had to have a certain amount of “Native blood” or ancestry. In order to be enrolled in the tribe, they usually think you have to be “so much” Indian. The law says that you can only be enrolled in one tribe so here would be an example. My grandma is Dakota. My grandpa is Lakota. So technically I'm 25% Dakota 25% Lakota, but I'm enrolled as half because the two tribes are similar so they accept each other's blood Quantum. But, for example, if I was half Navajo and half Lakota, we can only be enrolled in one tribe. So, in that instance, I'd be listed as part Native even though technically I'm a hundred percent American Indian. And for American Indians there’s a fear sometimes of not being Indian enough. This can create this tension where we sort of pick at each other. This is what we might call lateral violence or lateral oppression, and it only serves to help the oppressor. Some of it has to do with how we internalize who we are while some has to do with how we then externalize that onto others. One example of this lateral violence would be when people claim that someone’s not Black enough or they're not Indian enough. The whole idea of crabs in the bucket pulling each other down is lateral violence. It's unfortunate and it's not helpful. Relatedly, there’s this idea of whose oppression is worse or more which is also unhelpful. <br />
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Getting back to the question about race or race and ethnicity, these are socially constructed things. We may think of them as fixed, especially race, but if we look at history, Greeks and Italians were put in the nonwhite category and the people of color category and somewhere along the line they got moved into the white category. As an aside, it may be worth asking how quickly did that transform how they interacted with other communities of color when this happened. Ethnicity I would think of as the cultural piece of who one is so, in my case, Lakota that would be an ethnicity versus Native American, Indian, or Indigenous, which would be the race. You can also think about Afro-Caribbean versus African American versus African as three different ethnic groups with unique cultural identities (and even within Africa, of course, there's like you got a host of different ethnic groups), but Black would be the racial identity. <br />
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C: You talk about race as a social construct, which is what a lot of critical race theory would put forward, but my sense is most people “on the ground” think of race as something essential or biological. Can you talk a little bit about how those two concepts relate to each other? Also, does saying something is a social construct make it less real?<br />
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S: Well, first of all politics are a social construct and they're very much real. I can't test somebody's blood and say, “Oh, you're a Republican or a Democrat.” At the same time, you can see how faulty biological assertions about race are. There's more variance within any one racial group than there is between the groups. And I think the things that people like to think about biologically are almost always proven to be untrue or there's something else interacting with it. For instance, some people talk about Black women having shorter gestational time for pregnancy or more stillbirths, that has much more to do with the stress that they're under. You can look to the rates of cortisol in their blood and compare that to nonblack women under similar stress and the differences disappear. What we might think of as a biological trait is actually a result of how they’re treated and so a lot more about the racism that they’re facing than anything else.<br />
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C: Getting to how our churches can concretely enter into this work, are there things that a predominantly white church that wants to enter into work for racial reconciliation within the church can do, including communities that feel afraid of doing inappropriate or culturally appropriative things?<br />
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S: I've heard a lot of my white friends on Facebook posting about that issue. One of them said something along the lines of, “I'm really confused. This is my neighborhood. There’s all this stuff going on and I want my children to do the right thing. I don’t know what to do. I want people to be able to voice their anger and concern about what happened with George Floyd and I'm angry about it too, but also want to protect my family and I just want to be a good human. I don’t know how to be a good human right now.” And I think that anxiety is really real for people so I just want to acknowledge that. It may not always be so present as it was for her, but I think it’s present for everyone, and again I think that's why sometimes it's easier for people to ignore it because they don't have to deal with that cognitive dissonance that they feel. But the reality is as white people in society you have privileges that you receive that are unearned and I think you have to think about what your responsibility with that privilege is as a Christian and as a human being. Concretely it doesn't help anyone to be silent—silence only ever hurts the people who are oppressed. It doesn't hurt the oppressor. As a church, you can do a curriculum called “Sacred Ground,” which is a free resource, it consists of a series of 10 meetings. There’s usually some sort of learning piece like a video you watch or an article to read and then you talk about it as a group. It’s a free curriculum for Episcopal congregations. While it was designed originally for white folks to talk about race in the church, anyone is welcome to participate. Katrina Browne and other folks are working on a revamped version more for multicultural or people of color to enter the conversation. Another thing is for clergy to preach and talk about race in church. We sometimes just wring our hands like “I don't know what to do,” but don't do nothing—preach about it. We’ve also developed some resources around Learn, Pray, Act. We're trying to keep it really short—like five or six things in each category. A really simple but overlooked thing is to ask how you are interacting with your neighborhood. Do they know who you are? Do you know the other agencies and businesses and people in your neighborhood? Another thing you could do is invite different people to come together and just have a dialogue and ask them a question like “What pressures are on your family right now?” If you have little groups of six or eight you’ll start to hear stuff come out and it's often through those gatherings that churches can find things to focus on to help transform their community. A good example of that would be some of the stuff that happened in South Dakota around predatory lending. They listened to people and heard them say, “I don't know how to make ends meet and I do these loans and then I end up losing my car.” These conversations helped them put energy into working against predatory lending practices and helped to get legislation passed that pushed these businesses out of the state. <br />
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C: It's wild how difficult we try to seem to make this when, at the end of the day, it sounds like one of the most helpful things is to go and build relationships with people who are in your community who are different from you. <br />
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S: Yes, it's wild that that's got to be something we have to talk about and remind people to do. <br />
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C: Is it right that some of that fear about saying or doing the wrong thing is mitigated by the relationships because once you actually have a relationship, there’s more grace?<br />
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S: Yes, absolutely, and part of growing and learning is making mistakes. I mean, ideally, they are mistakes that don’t permanently hurt someone, but through building those relationships, you’ll make small mistakes at the beginning, learn from them, and then you won’t ever make a mistake in a big way. It’s akin to learning to dance: You're going to step on people’s feet every once in a while. But then when you're really good at dancing, they'll be no more feet stepping. It’s the same thing when it comes to learning how to be in relationship with others. One of the things that I think is helpful is talking to the organizations and businesses in your community. Do the elementary schools know that you're there? We have a lot of elders in our churches who feel like this relationship building is not possible because of age or mobility. But offer to go read to folks. When you get to know people around you and build relationships it's a lot harder to hold on to fear of them as the other. When I lived in Seattle, I worked with homeless and at-risk kids. We did outreach on the streets of Seattle in the red-light district. People would ask, “Aren’t you afraid they're gonna hurt you?” But no—you're building relationships. You're just engaging in conversation. We always have stuff to give them like condoms or bleach kits or socks, too, but what was interesting was the longer I lived there the more I saw those kids grow up and intersect in other parts of my life. Some ended up as bouncers at the clubs I would go to or would be working at the grocery store. <br />
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C: There was an interesting tweet I saw earlier basically saying basically if you look around at the conditions for people of color in America, you’re left with either thinking there is something wrong with people of color, which is the racist option, or there is something wrong with America. It seems that in building these relationships it becomes a lot harder to go with the racist option. <br />
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S: Right and I think part of that is what’s called in the social sciences the Just World Phenomenon. We think that the world is just so if something bad happens to someone, it must be because they did something to cause it. We see that even all the way back in the Bible. We know the story where people ask, “Why is this person blind?” and it’s just assumed that it's because of something the person or their parents did. But Jesus corrects this saying that everything is not about what the individual or their family did. <br />
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C: Speaking from the reality of responses I’ve seen from white folks before, especially around claims to white privilege or feelings of undue responsibility for engaging in dismantling systemic racism, are there any ways that we can enter into this conversation in a way that can disarm some of those challenges or questions? <br />
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S: To begin with, it probably helps to frame the conversation around how much of the burden of the results of racism is already being borne by people of color. It’s not just emotional or mental discomfort—it's often life or death, real constant suffering and trauma. That said though, if someone challenges the idea of white privilege or the idea of their personal responsibility for dismantling these systems, I always try and seek first to understand, to see where they’re coming from. Are they truly feeling overburdened in their own life or are they just coming to church to be comfortable? If you're just coming to church to be comfortable, don't go to church, go to a country club. As the church, we’re called to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world and that means working and sometimes that even means, you know, sacrificing your life. Think of cases like Bonhoeffer’s. And today, the work that we need to do as Christians has a lot more to do with how we're really showing love to others, which means stepping out of your comfort zone and means doing things that might be simple but not easy and it means checking your privilege. I think one of the benefits of white privilege is you can avoid even talking about it or knowing about it if you want, but that also means you can’t expect people to completely change immediately and suddenly. It’s not dissimilar to how you expect people to become practicing Christians. You're not going to expect somebody whose brand new to Christianity to understand the Daily Office. You have to start really basic: Here's the story of Jesus. I think the same is true when we’re talking about race. We can't just go and expect somebody to be “woke.” You should try to learn and when you make a mistake (and you will) apologize and move on. I think again people know if you're trying to be in relationship with them and that is key. When you're trying to learn a language, you're going to make so many mistakes speaking the language but people usually, in my experience at least, are so happy that you’re even trying to learn the language they’ll help you through that.<br />
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One of the difficult things about race and racism that people think is that it’s a binary: If you’re a racist you're bad and if you're not racist you’re good. But it exists on a spectrum that's part of a larger social structure. So, if you're a part of that structure, you are racist in the fact that you're part of that structure and that you have privilege from it. We have to stop thinking of it as someone is a racist or is not a racist and instead think about whether we’re able to move on the spectrum toward being less racist and helping to dismantle racist structures. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we think of it primarily as a question of morality, of being personally good or bad. I would think of it more as like are you moving in the right direction? I don't care if you're crawling and stumbling in that direction or if you're running. I just think everybody should be moving in that direction. And I think we as people have different things in our life. And so, it's up to us to figure out what that looks like for ourselves rather than judging others for not doing enough. At the same time, I think we can help by educating and by holding up a mirror to folks and saying, “Hey, this is what I'm seeing. What do you see?” <br />
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C: Well thank you so much for sitting down to do this interview with me. <br />
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S: It’s my pleasure.<br />
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from an article originally in <a href="https://earthandaltarmag.com/posts/tgt8tsyxy1ok46j0y1mekaaypknh1g">Earth & Altar</a>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-66618048977206591242020-07-29T14:24:00.000-04:002020-07-29T14:24:36.414-04:00Gun Violence in America<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://edsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/buagv-blog-pic-1024x680.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="800" height="278" src="https://edsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/buagv-blog-pic-1024x680.png" width="419" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>FROM: BISHOPS UNITED AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE</div><div><br /></div>Dear People of God in the Episcopal Church,<br /><div><br /></div><div>In Revelation 21:4, we learn that in the new heaven, God will wipe every tear from our eyes. In her novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson tells us that “it takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.” Today God’s people are weeping over the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and gun violence, and we are called once again to respond.</div><br />The spiraling rate at which Americans are buying firearms during the pandemic is driving a deadly spike in gun violence. According to researchers from the University of California, Davis and the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center, Americans bought 2.1 million more firearms in March through May 2020 than over the same period in previous years. That was just a prelude to June, when Americans bought 2.4 million firearms, a 145 percent increase from June 2019.<br />This gun buying surge has, not surprisingly, begat a surge in gun violence. Authors of the University of California paper estimated that 776 additional injuries or deaths occurred across the nation between March and May. And according to Everytown for Gun Safety, the Gun Violence Archive’s records indicate that 345 more people died of gun shots between March and May than during the same period in previous years.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Like so much else about the COVID-19 crisis, the surge in gun violence has hit communities of color hardest.</div><div><br /></div><div>In New York City, twice as many people were shot this June than last June, and police say 97 percent of those victims were people of color. In Chicago, shootings this June were 76 percent higher than last, and concentrated heavily in communities of color. In Louisville, where protests have proliferated after Breonna Taylor was shot in her own home by the police in March, non-fatal shootings have doubled over the same period last year, gun deaths have risen by 40 percent, and between January and May, almost 75 percent of homicide victims were Black. And in June, as people took to the streets across the country in peaceful protests against racism, gun buying surged highest in states with the highest levels of overt racism.</div><div><br /></div><div>Too many people, researchers tell us, are motivated to buy guns by anxiety and fear.</div><div><br /></div><div>As Christians, we know that Jesus tells us not to be afraid. And as advocates, we know that having a gun in the home in the midst of a pandemic does little to guarantee safety. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has a firearm. Children are at significantly greater risk playing in a home with an unsecured gun. The guns Americans are buying today will be wreaking havoc on our streets and in our homes long after the pandemic has passed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The kind of sensible gun reforms that Bishops United Against Gun Violence supports could help change this situation, but they have been thwarted by politicians of both parties who offer only thoughts and prayers in the wake of mass shootings rather than meaningful reforms.</div><br />We urge you to change this situation by voting for candidates who support sensible gun reforms and ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to vote. Our partners at Brady: United to Prevent Gun Violence and March for Our Lives have put together an excellent toolkit highlighting the essential link between voting rights and our country’s ability to enact popular and sensible gun safety legislation. Racist and discriminatory voter suppression is rampant in our country, and the communities most affected by gun violence — namely Black and Latinx communities — face the greatest barriers.<br />The campaign seeks to mobilize gun violence prevention activists to lobby for expanding voting access across four broad categories:<br /><div><br /></div><div>1. Vote by mail and absentee voting</div>2. Online and same -- day voter registration<br />3. Early voting<br /><div>4. Restoring voting rights</div><div><br /></div>We urge you to become active in this campaign in the coming months, to make sure that you, your family and friends are registered to vote, and to have a back-up voting plan should the pandemic make voting in person risky. We also ask that you contact your U. S. Senators if they are not up for reelection this year and let them know you would like them to pass the sensible gun reform bills currently stalled in that chamber.<br /><div><br /></div><div>To ensure that Episcopalians are informed voters on gun violence issues, soon after Labor Day, we plan to gather partners from gun violence prevention organizations to help us learn more about how we can continue working and voting against the pandemic gun buying surge and its deadly aftermath. We invite you to follow the Episcopalians Against Gun Violence Facebook page for details and registration coming soon.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since our inception, the advocacy of Bishops United Against Gun Violence has been rooted in gospel values and sustained by communal prayer. While we cannot gather in person, we know that many of you have become accustomed to worshiping online. Therefore, in September, we are planning to host on our Facebook page a churchwide Service of Lamentation for all those whose lives have been touched by gun violence. Please follow the page for details coming soon. Together we will weep for those we have lost, grieve the fear that leads us astray, and prepare to witness at the ballot box and in the halls of Congress to the God of life who overcomes death, now and forevermore.</div><div><br /></div><div>Faithfully,</div><br />Bishops United Against Gun Violence<br />Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-9369639302577020242020-07-29T14:12:00.001-04:002020-07-29T14:12:39.197-04:00Wednesday Meditation: Habit of Grace<div><p style="-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 125%; margin: 10px 0; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; padding: 0; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><a href="https://episcopalchurch.org/habits-of-grace?wvideo=9bjiiqa5ft&wkey=T0ZGSUNFQFNUUEVURVJTT05USEVHUkVFTi5DT00&foreign_data=mailchimp_campaign_id%3A9bd53451b4&wchannelid=u3mbmc7c0r&wvideoid=9bjiiqa5ft"><img height="225" src="https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/a0a2a995767f5faf84a7ad8c1d4c4b13a3542f5d.jpg?image_play_button_size=2x&image_crop_resized=960x540&image_play_button=1&image_play_button_color=525456e0" style="height: 225px; width: 400px;" width="400" /></a></p><p><a href="https://episcopalchurch.org/habits-of-grace?wvideo=9bjiiqa5ft&wkey=T0ZGSUNFQFNUUEVURVJTT05USEVHUkVFTi5DT00&foreign_data=mailchimp_campaign_id%3A9bd53451b4&wchannelid=u3mbmc7c0r&wvideoid=9bjiiqa5ft">Habits of Grace - July 27 - Habits of Grace: An invitation for you, from Presiding Bishop Curry</a></p><p style="-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 125%; margin: 10px 0; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; padding: 0; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,baskerville,georgia,serif;"><strong></strong></span></span></p><p style="-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 125%; margin: 10px 0; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; padding: 0; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,baskerville,georgia,serif;"><strong>July 2</strong><strong>7, 2020: Prayer into action</strong></span></span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,baskerville,georgia,serif;">Earlier
this week, I was preparing a very brief meditation for a kind of public
service announcement on prayer in the time of pandemic. And as I was
preparing, something dawned on me that I wanted to share with you. There
are two instances and there may be others to be sure, in both the
Hebrew scriptures and in the New Testament where you see prayer linked
directly with action.<br />
<br />
One example is found in First Kings where the prophet Elijah is fleeing
for his life. He, in Chapter 19, says he ends up at a cave near Mount
Horeb, which is Mount Sinai in other places. And there for 40 days, he's
in prayer, fasting and struggling. And after that time of prayer, when
he kind of senses what God wants him to do, he then goes out and leads a
reformation in Israel that was really significant.<br />
<br />
His prayer led him to action. You see the same kind of pattern in Jesus
in the garden of Gethsemane, he's praying about what he should do. And
that leads him to make the decision to give his life, to show what love
looks like for the cause and way of love. But it's that prayer that
leads to action. It occurred to me that in this time of pandemic, it may
be helpful to remember that our prayer can lead to actions. We can't do
all the things that we used to do, but we can do some things. We can
pray, pray for all of the conditions and all of the situations that we
are aware of in our world, and that we are aware of because of this
pandemic, but also take some action. There are ways we can support
causes that help people in this time.<br />
<br />
There are ways that we can support ministries that are helpful, but
there's some simple ways. We can keep social distance. That's a way of
action. It's an act of prayer. We can pay attention to public health
officials and their guidance, that's an action. And we can wear, of
course, these. We can wear these face masks. And so I was trying to
think of what is a prayer that combines prayer and action in the <em>Book of Common Prayer</em>? And I found it, there are many, but this one stands out.<br />
<br />
It's the prayer of St. Francis:<br />
<br />
<em>Lord make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let
us sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord,
union. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where
there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to
understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are
born to eternal life.</em><br />
<br />
Pray and do what you can.<br />
<br />
God love you. God bless you and keep the faith.</span></span></div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-48515514898252230412020-07-29T14:03:00.000-04:002020-07-29T14:03:24.745-04:00Thoughts on Welcoming and the Episcopal Church Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Three short articles for you to read if interested, small excerpts from the articles follow each...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1101062454179&ca=42bf2e2b-9f2e-406e-80d6-4017623bc57d">Forward Movement: News & Inspiration</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
In the last few days, I celebrated my ninth anniversary of serving at Forward Movement. These occasions are natural times to reflect on time that has passed. I'm proud of what Forward Movement has done, and I'm grateful for all the leaders who served before me to lay a solid foundation. Everything we do though is only possible because of the remarkable staff. I am profoundly grateful for gifted and passionate colleagues in ministry. <br /><br />Lately I've been thinking about our beloved Episcopal Church. In the last nine years, I've spent much of my time traveling across the church visiting congregations, dioceses, and various gatherings. I thought on this occasion I might share some thoughts based on what I've seen and heard. <br /></blockquote>
<a href="https://renewalworks.org/2020/07/monday-matters-july-27-2020/">Renewal Works: Monday Matters</a><br />
<br /><blockquote>
Back in the day, I did a fair amount of traveling for RenewalWorks, often meeting in churches in towns I’d never visited before. I loved the adventure, the exploration, the learning. With the help of Google, I’d find my way, but I was always glad to see signs that confirmed I was on the right track. The signs read: The Episcopal Church welcomes you. I could spot them a mile away. I’m grateful for them. Good branding. As far as it goes. <br /><br />In recent days, I’ve had occasion to think about what it means to be welcoming. Our church is putting together a parish profile. I’m reminded that every profile I ever read describes the church as welcoming. My experience of church visits can suggest otherwise. The folks who craft those profiles are usually folks at the core of those communities, folks who feel the welcome, which is wonderful. I contrast that with the young woman I met on the steps of a church in a big city. She looked up at the imposing façade and asked: Am I allowed to go in there?</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/episcopal-church-executive-council-opening-remarks-presiding-bishop-6">Episcopal Church Executive Council: opening remarks from the Presiding Bishop</a><br />
<blockquote>
As you well know, the entire world in varying degrees is faced with a global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. And in each country, there may be sections that are more affected at one time, others less so. That's certainly true for those of us in the United States. And it's true, I know from listening to Bishop Allen from Honduras, and in other countries as well. And I would just remind you to keep the world in prayer and our medical caregivers and our researchers and our leaders that they will be wise and just and loving in their leadership. And to pray for each other. <br /><br />These are tough times psychologically; I'm not a psychologist, but we're all a little frazzled and probably a little bit claustrophobic at this point. We've been restricted from the normal human interaction that we would have, which feeds us in a lot of ways that you don't think about until you don't have it. The truth is we are each other's biggest headaches and the truth is we need each other. And being separated like this is just tough on all of us. <br /><br />And so just remember to encourage everybody to be gentle with each other, to be kind and maybe a little extra kind even. Because everybody's a little bit on edge and everybody's tired and everybody's weary and for good or ill, we've only just begun. This is not even, to borrow from Churchill, this isn't even the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. We're in this for a while.</blockquote>
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-65860179930822707612020-07-26T10:30:00.000-04:002020-07-26T10:30:01.521-04:00Proper 12 Sermon
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="font-georgia">God of love and grace.<br />
It would be so much easier to be a disciple</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">If I could just keep the rules;</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">If I didn't have to navigate </span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">The dangerous territories of compassion.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="font-georgia">But you seek disciples</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">With hearts of flesh</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">And not of stone.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span class="font-georgia">You seek
disciples</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">Who are always willing</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">To lay aside the law</span><br />
<span class="font-georgia">To bind up the wounds</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="font-georgia">Make me one of those
kind. Amen. (Glen Jordan)<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As my time
with you draws to a close, I keep thinking about our call as disciples of Jesus,
that we are called through our baptism to live out of those dangerous territories
of compassion and love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">"You
are rewarded not according to your work or your time, but according to the measure
of your love." – St. Catherine of Siena</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It is the
measure of our love and what we do with that, from our hearts of flesh that
speaks to our faith. In the Gospel for today, Jesus again puts parables before
the crowds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">"The
kingdom of heaven is like… </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">a
mustard seed - sowed in a field; the smallest of all the seeds, the greatest of
shrubs</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">yeast
used in flour </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">a
treasure hidden in a field </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">a
pearl of great value </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">a
net thrown into the sea to gather fish of all kinds</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It is as
if to answer the question, What is the Kingdom of heaven like? Jesus didn’t
want to settle for one story, so he gave us a few little parables, each giving
us a glimpse into what the kingdom of heaven is like. Each is a very faithful message
drawn from the daily life of people that Jesus encountered. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It seems
that Jesus did not want to just give us one image, but like holding a prism up
to the light, he helped us catch different glimpses of what the kingdom is
like. A diversity of images to help us all catch and delight in what the
kingdom of God is like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As Lane
Denson III, put it, “Parables are not to be explained, they are to be
understood, and like most of the important things in life, they are understood
only by our opening ourselves to them and listening with wonder and
imagination, participating in them in a way.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
And when we do open ourselves to the parables that Jesus gives us, they we can
be open to discover the Kingdom of Heaven that is in our very midst.<br />
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
Many years ago, a young Maori girl in New Zealand was captivated by the
teaching and good works of missionaries who came to her village. She became a
fixture at prayer with the fledgling community. One Sunday, as she was leaving
the small church, the girl was struck by a potato thrown by a man who resented
the presence of the missionaries in his village and those who embraced this
strange new religion. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
The girl retrieved the potato and brought it home, She cut up the potato,
planted it and harvested it. She then sought out the man who had thrown the
potato at her and presented him with the bushel basket of new potatoes she had
harvested. [from Connections, July 2005] </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
<br />
That young girl understood the parables that Jesus has given us, she found that
pearl of great price in a potato thrown, and she made sure to share the
abundance with him after the harvest as she had experienced with God’s love. <br />
<br />
The kingdom of heaven is like so many things, do we have faith enough to see? To
share?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It reminds
me of a poem by the welsh priest and poet, R. S. Thomas (The Bright Field): <br />
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
I have seen the sun break through </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
to illuminate a small field </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
for a while, and gone my way </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
of great price, the one field that had </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
treasure in it. I realize now </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
that I must give all that I have </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
to possess it. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
Life is not hurrying </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
on to a receding future, nor hankering after </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
an imagined past. It is the turning </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
aside like Moses to the miracle </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
of the lit bush, to a brightness </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
that seemed as transitory as your youth </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">May we
turn aside in our lives now, in the midst of pandemic and hate, to be those who
will bring light, love and compassion into our world. Be it in Monroe or South
Dakota… for </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"love must act as light must shine and fire must
burn." – Fr. James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on
fire.” – </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">St. Catherine
of Siena</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">May that
be so for all of us. Amen.<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"></span></span></div>
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<![endif]-->Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-66130529249460924602020-07-22T12:00:00.000-04:002020-07-22T12:00:10.362-04:00Wednesday Noonday Meditation: Mary Magdalene<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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From a homily on the Gospels by St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome (600 CE) <br /><br /> <i>She longed for Christ, though she thought he had been taken away <br /> </i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: "The disciples went back home," and it adds: "but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb." <br /><br /> We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: "Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved." <br /><br /> At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: "My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: "I was wounded by love;" and again: "My soul is melted with love." <br /><br /> "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.<br /><br /> "Jesus says to her: Mary." Jesus is not recognized when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognize me as I recognize you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognizes who is speaking. She immediately calls him "rabboni," that is to say, "teacher," because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching. </blockquote>
<br />Nevertheless, she persisted. To the end. And great was her reward. May we all follow Mary Magdalene’s example, find healing in following Jesus and may we persist to the end in love. <br /><br />Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP)Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-34847429603098169872020-07-19T18:01:00.000-04:002020-07-19T18:01:11.254-04:00John Lewis & The Way of Love #goodtrouble<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdSoUC8X0AEF6i0?format=jpg&name=medium" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdSoUC8X0AEF6i0?format=jpg&name=medium" width="400" /></a></div><div><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1iusvr4 r-16y2uox r-1777fci"><div class="css-1dbjc4n"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-zl2h9q"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1awozwy r-18u37iz r-1wtj0ep"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs"><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-1dbjc4n r-1loqt21 r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l" data-focusable="true" href="https://twitter.com/PB_Curry" role="link"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1awozwy r-18u37iz r-dnmrzs"><div class="css-901oao css-bfa6kz r-9ilb82 r-18u37iz r-1qd0xha r-a023e6 r-16dba41 r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Presiding Bishop Michael Curry (</span>@PB_Curry)</span></div><div class="css-901oao css-bfa6kz r-9ilb82 r-18u37iz r-1qd0xha r-a023e6 r-16dba41 r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><br /></span></div></div></div></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-156q2ks"><div class="css-901oao r-1fmj7o5 r-1qd0xha r-1blvdjr r-16dba41 r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-bnwqim r-qvutc0" dir="auto" lang="en"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">May John Lewis and C. T. Vivian Rest In God’s Peace and may we, like them, rise up to claim the high call of love, never to cease laboring for a just and humane society and world, always showing compassion, and daily living humbly with God until all God’s children are free.</span></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Link here:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/07/18/john-lewis-preaching-politician-and-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-80/">https://religionnews.com/2020/07/18/john-lewis-preaching-politician-and-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-80/</a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/91/51/97/91519747c70f1d762a896473f61a0329.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="500" src="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/91/51/97/91519747c70f1d762a896473f61a0329.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-72786364698007701602020-07-19T17:51:00.002-04:002020-07-19T17:51:14.796-04:00Proper 11 SermonO God you sustain with love the growth of the good seed your Son has planted. Let your word bear rich fruit within us and produce its effects throughout the whole world. May we dare to hope that a new humanity will blossom and grow to shine like the sun in your kingdom when the Lord of the harvest returns at the end of the age. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. (Peter J. Scagnelli) <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox </div>
<br />As Jesus speaks in parables to us about good seeds, weeds, and the kingdom of God, I got to thinking about those weeds. <br /><br />“A weed is but an unloved flower.” <br /><br />We live in this pandemic where too much of our time is spent on us vs. them and today’s parable would seem to fit with that, the good seeds and the children of light vs. the weeds and the children of the evil one. <br /><br />Surely, we who are watching online and sitting on the Green are the good seed… <br /><br />“A weed is but an unloved flower.” <br /><br />And yet the seed that flowers and the weeds grow together, can we tell them apart? Is that what we need to spend our time doing? Or as our Presiding Bishop would say, we follow the example of the planter of those Good seeds and follow Jesus way of love… <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What would love do? Love is the community praying together, in ways old and new. Love finds a path in this new normal to build church communities around being in relationship with God. <br /><br />What would love do? Love calls us to care for our neighbors, for our enemies. Love calls us to attend to those in prison, to those who are homeless, to those in poverty, to children, to immigrants and refugees. Love calls us to be in relationship with those with whom we disagree. <br /><br />What would love do? Love calls us to be gentle with ourselves, to forgive our own mistakes, to take seriously the Sabbath. Love calls us to be in love with God, to cultivate a loving relationship with God, to spend time with God, to be still and know that God is God.” </blockquote>
<br />I think we need to spend more time on nurturing the good seed with love and less time worrying about the weeds…for maybe by love that weed will grow into something else… <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Jesus said the weeds would grow with the wheat until the Judgement," Dietrich answered, "so one finds both good men and bad in the Church. By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves. I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.” (Michael Flynn) </blockquote>
<br />That grace is the love we live and share with the world, and what will grow with our love? <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
In her book My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging, physician Rachel Naomi Remen tells of the many unusual gifts she received from her beloved grandfather, an Orthodox rabbi and scholar. <br /><br />Once, when she was four, her grandfather brought her a paper cup. She expected to find something special inside. It was full of dirt. Rachel was not allowed to play with dirt. Disappointed, she told her grandfather that she wasn’t allowed to play with dirt. Her grandfather smiled. He took her little teapot from her doll’s tea set and took little Rachel to the kitchen where it filled it with water. He put the little cup on a windowsill in her room and handed her the teapot. “If you promise to put some water in this cup every day, something may happen,” he told her. <br /><br />This made little sense to a four-year-old, but little Rachel promised. “Every day,” he repeated. At first, Rachel did not mind pouring water into the cup, but as the days went on and nothing happened, it became harder and harder to remember to do it. After a week, she asked her grandfather if it was time to stop yet. Grandfather shook his head. “Every day,” he repeated. <br /><br />The second week it became even harder, but Grandfather held her to her promise: “Every day.” Sometimes she would only remember about the water after she went to bed and would have to get up in the middle of the night and water it in the dark. But, in the end, Rachel did not miss a single day of watering. <br /><br />Then, one morning three weeks later, there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before. Rachel was completely astonished. She could not wait to tell her grandfather, certain that he would be as surprised as she was -- but, of course, he wasn’t. Carefully he explained to his beloved granddaughter that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places. <br /><br />Rachel was delighted. “And all it needs is water, Grandpa?” <br /><br />Gently, he touched her on the top of her head. “No, dear Rachel. All it needs is your faithfulness.” </blockquote>
<br />Faith is the ability to see in the smallest of things that it is part of God’s creation and the courage and perseverance to love it. Humanity’s dreams of peace, community and justice will be realized in the everyday acts of such goodness that comes from each one of us. <br /><br />For Jesus through the Spirit continues to plant the good seeds. <br /><br />May we with our lives be faithful to his work. <br /><br />Tending to this world with love. <br /><br />Making good trouble, necessary trouble, so that the seeds and the weeds don’t feel unloved, and that there will be a rich harvest at the end of the age. Amen.Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-84124205095702873802020-07-19T17:49:00.002-04:002020-07-19T17:49:21.935-04:00How love shows us the way during difficult times<a href="https://media14.s-nbcnews.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Video/202006/tdy_news_hoda_curry2_200601.focal-760x428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://media14.s-nbcnews.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Video/202006/tdy_news_hoda_curry2_200601.focal-760x428.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="https://www.today.com/news/bishop-michael-curry-shares-how-love-shows-us-way-during-t186730">from today.com</a> <br /><br />
How love shows us the way during difficult times, according to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry <br /> <br /><i>The <a href="https://www.today.com/news/rev-michael-curry-royal-wedding-bishop-reflects-whirlwind-year-t138974">Most Rev. Michael Curry</a> is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the author of the upcoming book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/605848/love-is-the-way-by-bishop-michael-curry-with-sara-grace/">"Love Is the Way: Holding On to Hope in Troubling Times,"</a> due out Sept. 22.</i><br />
<blockquote>
Today, like Peter and the disciples, we must discern a new normal. The continued rise in cases of COVID-19 and the raising of voices in the streets following the deaths of <a href="https://www.today.com/video/bernice-king-talks-about-george-floyd-a-real-family-is-behind-this-tragedy-84479045690">George Floyd</a>, <a href="https://www.today.com/video/breonna-taylor-audiotapes-reveal-new-details-about-her-shooting-87376453982">Breonna Taylor</a>, and <a href="https://www.today.com/video/3-defendants-indicted-on-murder-charges-in-ahmaud-arbery-case-85976645545">Ahmaud Arbery</a> have left us disoriented, uncertain, and confused, afraid of what we know and anxious about what we do not know. Our old normal has been upended, and we hunger for its return.<br /><br />I do not say this from a lofty perch. I get it. There is a big part of me that wants to go back to January 2020 when I had never heard of <a href="https://www.today.com/coronavirus">COVID-19</a>, and when I only thought of “Contagion” as a movie. Looking back through what I know are glasses darkened by loss, I find myself remembering January 2020 as a “golden age.”<br /><br />But of course, January 2020 wasn’t perfect, not even close. And anyway, I can’t go back. None of us can go back. We must move forward. But we don’t know for sure what the new normal will be. Fortunately, God’s rubric of love shows us the way.<br /><br />We’ve all been trying, making mistakes, learning, regrouping, trying anew. I’ve seen it. I’ve quietly read Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline online with you. I’ve seen soup kitchens, pantries, and other feeding ministries carefully doing their work in safe and healthy ways. There are Zoom coffee hours, Bible studies, and small discipleship groups. I’ve seen people of many faiths stand for the moral primacy of love. I’ve seen it, even when public health concerns supersede all other considerations, including in-person worship. That is moral courage. Who knows, but that love may demand more of us. But fear not, just remember what the old slaves used to say, walk together, children, and don’t you get weary, because there is a great camp meeting in the Promised Land. Oh, I’ve seen us do what we never thought we would or could do, because we dared to do what Jesus tells us all to do.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br />As our seasons of life in <a href="https://www.today.com/news/what-rabbi-would-say-those-struggling-find-hope-during-pandemic-t182243">the COVID-19 world</a> continue to turn, we are called to continue to be creative, to risk, to love. We are called to ask, What would unselfish, sacrificial love do?<br /><br />What would love do? Love is the community praying together, in ways old and new. Love finds a path in this new normal to build church communities around being in relationship with God. Love supports Christians in spiritual practices. Prayer, meditation, study. Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest.<br /><br />What would love do? Love calls us to care for our neighbors, for our enemies. Love calls us to attend to those in prison, to those who are homeless, to those in poverty, to children, to immigrants and refugees. Love calls us to be in relationship with those with whom we disagree.<br /><br />What would love do? Love calls us to be gentle with ourselves, to forgive our own mistakes, to take seriously the Sabbath. Love calls us to be in love with God, to cultivate a loving relationship with God, to spend time with God, to be still and know that God is God.<br /><br />A few weeks ago when so many things were happening, both in our country and in our wider world, I was on a Zoom call with a member of our staff working on videos and interviews and it was so much and so chaotic, I remember just saying, "Let's just stop, and pray."<br /><br />And the prayer I prayed was a prayer from The Book of Common Prayer. It's toward the end of the prayer book on page 832 called “For Quiet Confidence.” This prayer is based on a time in the life of the prophet Isaiah, when the people of Judah and Jerusalem were living in a time when their country was in turmoil and things were uncertain and chaos seemed to be ruling.<br /><br />The prophet Isaiah said, "You must remember that it is in returning and rest, that you will be saved; in quietness and confidence, you will find your strength." And this is the prayer we prayed and I offer it for all of us. Let us pray:<br /><br /><i>Oh, God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and in rest, we shall be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength. By the might of thy Spirit, lift us, we pray thee to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.</i><br /><br />God love you and keep the faith. <br /> </blockquote>
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-6922495812712585172020-07-15T16:25:00.002-04:002020-07-15T16:25:59.817-04:00Thursday Night - The Color of Compromise<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://faithconnector.s3.amazonaws.com/ccgb/downloads/the_color_of_compromise_flyer_register.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="400" src="https://faithconnector.s3.amazonaws.com/ccgb/downloads/the_color_of_compromise_flyer_register.jpg" width="309" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Learn more here (and/or sign-up):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.ccgb.org/content.cfm?page_content=announcement_include.cfm&announcement_id=28">https://www.ccgb.org/content.cfm?page_content=announcement_include.cfm&announcement_id=28</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">You can also watch (episodes of) the Color of Compromise on Amazon Prime Video (for free):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="goog_1342893578"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Defending-Slavery-Onset-Civil-War/dp/B083ZMNSB2/">https://www.amazon.com/Defending-Slavery-Onset-Civil-War/dp/B083ZMNSB2/</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">You can also listen to the author on a Podcast explore some of this topic:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/christian-racist-complicity-american-history-monuments/id1505076294?i=1000484236559">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/christian-racist-complicity-american-history-monuments/id1505076294?i=1000484236559</a><br /></div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-25255443666490089002020-07-15T16:20:00.000-04:002020-07-15T16:20:04.429-04:00Wednesday Meditations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p600x600/91868394_2839402022811318_5363503538032869376_o.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_sid=e3f864&_nc_ohc=oQXZLkmsiAwAX9pdFF1&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&_nc_tp=6&oh=f9ce7c28c2ad34825c1a9dbb06d9bfe2&oe=5F35E0EA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="960" height="250" src="https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p600x600/91868394_2839402022811318_5363503538032869376_o.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_sid=e3f864&_nc_ohc=oQXZLkmsiAwAX9pdFF1&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&_nc_tp=6&oh=f9ce7c28c2ad34825c1a9dbb06d9bfe2&oe=5F35E0EA" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>From our Noonday Meditations:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><blockquote>I
would like to say a word on behalf of all of us who are not statistics.
I hear a lot of talk about whether the Covid-19 pandemic is really that
bad because testing only shows more cases as opposed to more deaths. I
want to remind our leaders that those numbers are both only the tip of
the iceberg for the suffering being endured in this nation. Many of us
are not a case or a death to be counted, at least not yet, but we live
every day in a suffering we could not have imagined a few months ago. We
are cut off from those we love with no clear idea of how long it will
be before we can once again walk into a senior living facility to see a
parent, or make a trip to be with grandchildren who are growing up so
fast without us, or take our spouse out to dinner without being afraid.
Do you know what that is like? Do you know how that feels? Please notice
us. Please think about us. We are not statistics. We are not cases or
deaths, but we are millions. Look out from the Rose Garden and see the
millions of us who have been hurting so much for so long, and will go on
hurting until this crisis is over. Then let us hear you say that you
understand and that you care. Not for the numbers, but for the people.
For us. ~ Steven Charleston (7/15/20)</blockquote></span></div><div><blockquote><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span><br /><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">Nothing
will keep us from the light, no power yet dreamed, no fear yet formed,
nothing that darkness can throw up to mask the truth or dread can spin
like webs of worry to snare hope and hold it. The light is our
birthright. It is our promised inheritance, the natural realm of our
existence from which we came and to which we will return. Open, free,
transparent, clear, the world of justice and mercy, the land of love and
redemption. We may bear shadows for a while, but nothing will keep us
from the light, so strong is our faith in its source. ~ Steven Charleston (3/29/17)</span></span></blockquote><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"></span></span></div><div><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 ew0dbk1b jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">Source: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/bishopstevencharleston">https://www.facebook.com/bishopstevencharleston</a><br /></span></span></div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-88388028736192858522020-07-15T16:14:00.002-04:002020-07-15T16:14:23.654-04:00Holy Living and Holy Dying - Three Stages<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element">
</div><br /><div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" style="text-align: center;"><u><b>The good death in three stages <br /></b></u>by Samuel Wells</div><div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"><div style="text-align: center;">July 8, 2020 <br /></div> <br />In <em>The Mirror and the Light</em>, the final
volume of her magnificent trilogy on the career of Henry VIII’s senior
counselor Thomas Cromwell, Hilary Mantel describes her protagonist’s
sense of his own mortality in three stages. One is perpetual: he
witnesses the fall and rise of many in England and is responsible for a
good few; he knows, especially as the son of a lowly blacksmith, how
fragile is his exalted status, so dependent on the whim of the king and
the mercurial turn of political and personal events. The second is
shocking: within a couple of months of being elevated to the earldom of
Essex, apparently near the pinnacle of the aristocracy, he’s toppled by a
change in Henry’s heart, coupled with the conniving of his enemies and
of some he’d considered friends; he’s sent to the Tower of London, to
await execution for treason. The third is almost unbearable, as the last
pages of the novel describe his final minutes as he kneels to suffer
the ax.</div><div class="content"><div class="moz-reader-content reader-show-element"><div class="page" id="readability-page-1"><div> <p>Not everyone meets their end in these three distinct
stages. But what delineating these stages makes possible is finding a
way to become as ready as we could ever be to meet our Maker. Each stage
has its particular qualities and opportunities. But the aim, briefly
put, is to be so much at peace with one’s neighbor and oneself that when
the moment comes one is ready to be with God.</p> <p>The first stage,
when one becomes aware of one’s mortality, is the moment to make peace
with one’s neighbor. Of course we’re all dying, from the moment we’re
born, so this could be anytime—but there’s nothing like a diagnosis to
concentrate the mind. This stage is about being transformed from a
burden to a blessing. This is the season for putting one’s financial
affairs in order, writing a will, deciding who should receive mementoes
and legacies, and not leaving a mess for someone else to clean up.</p> <p>That’s
not just a financial mess. It can be a physical mess, in the shape of
documents, possessions, and clothes; of projects that are in no order,
have no identified destiny, and are symbols of a tomorrow that will
never come. It can, most damagingly, be an emotional mess, in words left
unsaid, apologies unspoken, enmity unresolved, sins unrepented, wounds
unhealed. It’s about being a grownup: not leaving a trail of wreckage
for some unnamed person to resolve after you’ve gone. How can my death
be a blessing to others? Should I donate my organs? Might I write a
letter to be opened on a descendant’s 18th birthday? Could I find words
to tell my brother that I know I hurt him and it was due to my failure
to know how to love him well? We could call this stage the forgiveness
of sins.</p> <p>The second stage, when it becomes clear this is now a
question of days or weeks, is the moment to make peace with oneself.
This stage is about transforming death from a curse to a gift. It’s too
late to do almost all the things that belong in stage one. It’s unwise
to crowd your life now with final words with all the neighbors you wish
to thank or forgive. There are many things you’re never going to do.
It’s time to let go of them. A longer life would simply have left a
different list of unfinished business—or the same list, with fewer
excuses.</p> <p>Write your own obituary, reflecting not just on the
short or long list of achievements but on the things left unsaid: none
of these will last forever, whether commendable or deplorable.
Contemplate those last two paragraphs, to which most readers skip, which
say, “Above all, she was always . . .” Forget the accomplishments and
failures. Just concentrate on being those last two paragraphs. It’s too
late to change them now.</p> <p>Love is strong as death. Let God fill
your heart with love, just as fast as your body is filling with death.
You have been given the astonishing gift of life. You didn’t ask for it;
you seldom questioned it; it was never yours to cling to or feel
entitled to. Now it’s being taken away. Who’s to say the one who gave
you this life hasn’t got an even better one in store for you? Stop
trying to hold onto life so tight no one can take it away from you. We
could call this stage the life everlasting.</p> <p>The third stage, when
there are mere hours left, is about making peace with God. This is the
moment to turn death from the great betrayal to the epitome of trust.
The phrase that marks this transition is “handed over.” Betrayal is
handed over into harm. Trust is handed over into safety. And here’s the
key: if you’ve done the hard work at stages one and two, this one’s the
easy bit. In fact, our whole lives are a preparation for this moment.
It’s time for God to take our body and give us a new one.</p> <p>The
pursuit of sanctity is the quest to save God the trouble—to make each
aspect of our lives transparent with God’s grace so there’s little
transformation to be done after our death. “Set me as a seal upon your
heart” is all there’s left to say. We could call this stage the
resurrection of the body.</p> <p>Only one thing witnesses to the truth of the gospel more than a good life. And that’s a good death.</p> <p><em>A version of this article appears in the print edition under the title “Mortality in stages.” </em><em>Samuel Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London and author of <em>Learning to Dream Again</em> and <em>A Nazareth Manifesto</em>.</em></p><p><em>Article from: <a href="http://christiancentury.org">christiancentury.org</a></em><br /></p><p><em></em></p> </div></div></div>
</div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-71893801917378102112020-07-15T16:01:00.000-04:002020-07-15T16:01:03.403-04:00Why we need the #ChurchToo Movement<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.bitchmedia.org/sites/default/files/article-images/%23ChurchToo%20main%20image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://www.bitchmedia.org/sites/default/files/article-images/%23ChurchToo%20main%20image.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Providing a safe place for all to participate in the ministries of a church is an important part of who we are as a church. #Churchtoo is important to remind us that we need to be vigilante to create safe spaces for all because abuse happens in churches too.<br />
<br />
A couple of important articles for us to read and remember...<br />
<br /><a href="https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2020/when-trusted-spiritual-leader-turns-out-be-sexual-predator">When a Trusted Spiritual Leader Turns out to Be a Sexual Predator</a><br />
<blockquote>
<br />MEN OF POWER have always abused that power. Every woman knows it, which is why none of us were surprised when #MeToo came for the church. But we weren’t prepared for Jean Vanier. <br /><br />The details of Vanier’s story are well known by now, but they bear repeating. Vanier, who died in May 2019 at the age of 90, was the internationally celebrated co-founder of L’Arche, a global network of homes where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together in community. A Roman Catholic layperson who never married, Vanier was regarded by many as a living saint; his New York Times obituary hailed him as “Savior of People on the Margins.” His writings on spirituality and community were best sellers and universally revered as modern classics. Vanier was also a sexual predator...</blockquote>
<br /><a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/three-women-who-accuse-david-haas-sexual-misconduct-speak-ncr">Three women who accuse David Haas of sexual misconduct speak with NCR</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Ali met Catholic composer David Haas when she was 14 years old, attending his <a href="http://www.davidhaas.us/music-ministry-alive/">Music Ministry Alive</a> camp for three years starting in 2002. She recalled him being a hands-on mentor, remembering names and affirming the talents of the 150-or-so music students who attended the program each summer. <br /><br />It wasn't until five years later that unwelcome sexual advances tainted the relationship, when Ali and Haas ran into each other at the <a href="http://www.recongress.org/">Religious Education Congress</a> in Los Angeles, Ali told NCR...</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/07/06/megachurch-pastor-john-ortberg-family-member-attraction-to-children-secret-menlo-church-daniel-lavery-whistelblower/">Megachurch pastor John Ortberg kept a family member’s attraction to children secret. Then his son blew the whistle</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
In what Menlo Church’s elders would later call “poor judgment” and a betrayal of trust, the megachurch pastor did not notify the church’s staff of the volunteer’s admitted attraction to minors. <br /><br />He did not notify the church’s elder board. <br /><br />He did not suggest the volunteer stop working with children – in fact, the pastor and his family encouraged the volunteer in his work as a coach of an Ultimate Frisbee team for high school students. <br /><br />Instead, Ortberg, the lead pastor of Menlo, kept what he had learned about the volunteer secret from his congregation. <br /><br />Especially the volunteer’s name: John “Johnny” Ortberg III, the pastor’s youngest son. <br /><br />But nothing in a church or in a family stays hidden forever...</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2020/02/24/western-massachusetts-priest-pleads-guilty-to-child-pornography-possession-diocese-reveals-abuse-allegation/">Western Massachusetts priest pleads guilty to child pornography possession; diocese reveals abuse allegation</a><br />
<blockquote>
The Rev. Gregory Lisby, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on Feb. 21, <a href="https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/09/16/massachusetts-priest-arrested-charged-with-possession-of-child-porn/">having been charged</a> after FBI agents raided the rectory where he was living in September. The same day, the diocese also revealed that, since Lisby’s arrest, it has “received devastating credible evidence” that Lisby sexually abused a teenager...</blockquote>
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-75904462571306068642020-07-12T10:00:00.000-04:002020-07-12T10:00:14.934-04:00Proper 10 SermonCreator God, unceasingly at work in the field of humanity sowing the good seed and awaiting its yield, let your Spirit move in power over us to transform our hearts into the good soil you seek. Then may your word bear fruit a hundredfold in our deeds of justice and peace, and thus reveal to a world that eagerly awaits its liberation the blessed hope and glorious freedom of your holy reign. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. (Peter J. Scagnelli) <br /><br /> <div style="text-align: center;">
<i>We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, <br />it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand… </i></div>
<br />Whenever we hear the Parable of the Sower, I think of that beautiful hymn, reminding us that even as we scatter seed, God plays God’s part, as we do ours. <br /><br /> Whenever we get to these parables of Jesus, we need to remember that a parable is not like an Aesop Fable with a moral at the end, it is not like the stories we so often hear. Parables are metaphors rooted in images of everyday life and yet as the parable unfolds the metaphors are shattered, things are not as they seem, and they challenge our vision of reality. <br /> <br /> Parables are open ended, with multiple meanings and layers to those stories, they are not so simple. That is why the disciples often asked Jesus to explain his parables. If Jesus had wanted to, he could have given a simple story or command like “love one another” as he did elsewhere. But to the crowd and his disciple he often spoke in parable. <br /> <blockquote>
A parable is “where the ordinary has gone askew and thereby shocks us into realizing that the parable leads us into another way of thinking about life.” (John R. Donahue) </blockquote>
Today we have the Parable of the Sower – of one who scatters seeds everywhere… <br /><br /> "This is not about what good soil we are, and how well we understand the divine mysteries. This is about what God is doing in staggering numbers." (Anna Carter Florence) <br /><br /> So let’s think about this parable of the Kingdom as the sower sowing seeds everywhere, seeing where it indeed will take root through a story of today… <br /><br /> <blockquote class="tr_bq">
In 2007, Ozlem Cekic was the first Muslim immigrant woman elected to the Danish Parliament. Ozlem’s family came to Denmark in the 1980s when she was a child. <br /><br />Soon after the election, the new legislator was inundated with hate mail — vile and racist, threatening her and her family. At first, she just deleted the e-mails, dismissing them as the work of fanatics. But one day a friend made an unexpected suggestion: reach out to the hate mail writers and invite them to meet for coffee. So Ozlem decided to call a man named Ingolf who had sent several nasty e-mails to her. Ozlem asked if she could come to his home for coffee; she would bring food. <br /><br />In an interview on NPR, Ozlem remembers: “I was so nervous about what he would say. And the first thing he said was, ‘I have to ask my wife.’ And I think, wow, so he’s like my father — he always wants to ask my mom before he decides something, you know? So it was the first time that Ingolf [seemed] normal for me.” <br /><br />After nervous introductions, the two began to talk, starting with their childhoods. From those stories, they moved on to talking about the things they disagreed about — and, to their surprise, things they agreed on. <br /><br />Because Ozlem was willing to make the call, Ingolf became a real person to her — and she to him. It was the first of many conversations over coffee she would have in her eight years in Parliament with critics and detractors — and she continues her #DialogueCoffee initiative now that she is out of office. <br /><br />“The vast majority of people I approach agree to meet me . . . Along the way, I have learned some valuable lessons. The people who sent hate mails are workers, husbands, wives, parents — like you and me. I’m not saying that their behavior is acceptable. But I have learned to distance myself from the hateful views without distancing myself from the person who’s expressing those views. <br /><br />“During these meetings, specific themes keeps coming up. They all seem to think that other people are to blame for the hate and for the generalization of groups. They all believe that other people have to stop demonizing. They point at politicians, the media, their neighbor or the bus driver who stops ten meters away. But then I ask, What about you? What can you do? The reply is usually, I have no influence, I have no power. <br /><br />“I know that feeling. For a large part of my life, I also thought that I don’t have any power and influence. But today, I know the reality is different. We all have power and influence where we are. So we must never underestimate our own potential. Trenches have been dug between people, yes. But we all have the ability to build the bridges that cross the trenches.” [TED Radio Hour, NPR, January 19, 2019.] </blockquote>
<br /> Ozlem Cekic’s #DialogueCoffee initiative is a contemporary image of Jesus’ parable of the sower: to possess the faith to sow seeds of compassion, understanding and justice on whatever “ground” we can. An encouraging word, a kind act, a moment to listen can all result in a harvest of hope we cannot imagine. <br /><br /> Jesus challenges us in the parable of the sower to be both sower and seed: If we seek peace, have we planted the seeds to realize such peace? If we seek trust and understanding, have we cultivated the ground to nurture such trust? If we seek a loving and giving family life, have we created the climate of acceptance and forgiveness that makes such love and understanding possible? <br /><br /> Christ calls us, as his disciples, to be sowers of the things and values of God in order to one day reap the harvest of God’s reign. For God is not done yet. planting seeds all over the place. <br /><br /> As Bishop Andy Doyle reminds us “We are to be, like Jesus, sowers of the seeds of the kingdom of God. We are to sow with abandonment. We are to sow in all kinds of places. We are to not worry about what grows but it is the production of fruit and the spread of the Good News that is our essential work.” Amen. Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-22044240050542246032020-07-08T14:39:00.000-04:002020-07-08T14:39:45.490-04:00Speaking of Freedom - A Letter to the Episcopal Church<div class="field field-name-field-publish-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden field-wrapper field-wrapper field">
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A Letter to the Church from the Rev's Winnie Varghese, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Stephanie Spellers (<span class="date-display-single" content="2020-07-04T09:45:00-04:00">July 4, 2020)</span><span class="date-display-single" content="2020-07-04T09:45:00-04:00">:</span><br /><blockquote>
<br />On this day, July 4th, our country celebrates its Independence. Our Episcopal Church also marks this as a major Feast Day, a day to pray in thanksgiving for the founders who “won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn.” <br /><br />Yet, we must ask what is the meaning of freedom in such a time as this, when the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately ravages Black, Brown, and First Nations communities suffering the pre-existing conditions of injustice and inequality? What is the meaning of freedom, when Black bodies continue to be brutalized by policing that has its roots in slave patrols? What is freedom when our Breonnas are not safe in their homes, our Ahmauds are not safe jogging, and our Erics, Elijahs, and Georges cry out, “I can’t breathe”? <br /><br />For the church, freedom must be more than a song we sing or a flag we wave. It must begin with the cross that calls us to claim freedom – and to free our church and nation – from America’s original sin: White supremacy. We long for the day that our church might be free to become what we have until now only aspired to be: a true church following a crucified and risen Lord and witnessing to God’s just future. <br /><br />And so we write this day, three women, three Episcopal priests, two of African descent, one South Indian, reflecting on what freedom means. We are fueled by a shared hope that our Episcopal Church can indeed live into what it means to be church and thus lead the nation into what it means to be truly free. </blockquote>
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<span class="date-display-single" content="2020-07-04T09:45:00-04:00">Read the whole letter here:</span></div>
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<a href="https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/racialreconciliation/speaking-freedom"><span class="date-display-single" content="2020-07-04T09:45:00-04:00">https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/racialreconciliation/speaking-freedom</span></a></div>
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Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-15697063354143944642020-07-08T14:30:00.001-04:002020-07-08T14:30:12.511-04:00A Prayer of Howard Thurman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h2>
Lord, Lord, Open Unto Me</h2>
Open unto me, light for my darkness<br /> Open unto me, courage for my fear<br /> Open unto me, hope for my despair<br /> Open unto me, peace for my turmoil<br /> Open unto me, joy for my sorrow<br /> Open unto me, strength for my weakness<br /> Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion<br /> Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins<br /> Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness<br /> Open unto me, love for my hates<br /> Open unto me, Thy Self for myself<br /> Lord, Lord, open unto me!<br />
<br /> <em>- Howard Thurman, from "Meditations of the Heart"</em><br />
<em><br />
Howard Thurman who was born in 1899 and raised in the segregated South. He is
recognized as one of the great spiritual leaders of the 20th century
renowned for his reflections on humanity and our relationship with God.
Thurman was a prolific author (writing at least 20 books); perhaps the
most famous is Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), which deeply
influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights
Movement. Thurman was the first black person </em><em style="line-height: 1.5;">to </em><em style="line-height: 1.5;">be a tenured Dean at a PWI (Boston U). He also co-founded the first interracially pastored, intercultural </em><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="4th prayer" name="4th prayer"></a><em style="line-height: 1.5;">church </em><em style="line-height: 1.5;">in </em><em style="line-height: 1.5;">the US.</em><br />
<em style="line-height: 1.5;">This prayer was used in our Wednesday meditations. </em><br /> Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-21097839219546113052020-07-08T11:02:00.001-04:002020-07-08T11:02:27.161-04:00Habit of Grace (Meditation for Wednesday)<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" class="wistia_embed" frameborder="0" height="225" name="wistia_embed" scrolling="no" src="https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/ey381oug1b" title="Wistia video player" width="400"></iframe><br />
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<b>(From our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry):</b> <br />
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The 4th of July weekend has just concluded and a new week has begun, but the titanic struggles of the old world continue. The struggles to face painful truths of our racial past, the struggles to find ways to fashion a new future, the struggles for racial justice and human equality and true human reconciliation. Even in the midst of these struggles, we still face a pandemic that is worldwide. Now the United States itself is gravely threatened and affected by COVID-19. And even in the midst of all of that, we enter a season of electioneering, campaigning, a presidential election that could well be a profoundly polarizing and divisive election for our country.<br />
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In this time, I remember the words of Howard Thurman, who I often go back to. Dr. Thurman was one of the founders of probably the first interracial and interreligious church in the United States in San Francisco, back in the forties and fifties. He was the author of Jesus and the Disinherited. He was one of the people who went and met Mahatma Gandhi in the 1940s, and brought back his teachings of non-violent social change that influenced an entire civil rights movement. He was quietly, if you will, the spiritual director of many of the leaders of the civil rights movement. Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, Martin King, many others went quietly to Howard Thurman to talk, to reflect, to pray. He wrote this in one of his meditations about times of great transition and turmoil:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Look well to the growing edge. All around us, worlds are dying and new worlds are being born. All around us, life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such as the growing edge. It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed. The upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason. A source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life's most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!</blockquote>
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God love you. God bless you. And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love.Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-86337066139787326952020-07-04T21:24:00.000-04:002020-07-04T21:24:17.683-04:00Going Deeper in the Sermon for Proper 9<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://ohmyhandmade.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Pauli_FINAL.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="800" height="245" src="https://ohmyhandmade.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Pauli_FINAL.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<b>To dive deeper with Paul Murray:</b><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1515458349"><br /></a>
<a href="https://ohmyhandmade.com/2016/omhg/featured/draw-a-larger-circle/">https://ohmyhandmade.com/2016/omhg/featured/draw-a-larger-circle/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.unz.com/print/CommonGround-1945q4-00022">https://www.unz.com/print/CommonGround-1945q4-00022</a><br />
<br />
<b>To lean into <span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.9961px; left: 126.095px; top: 291.302px; transform: scaleX(0.927626);">Pádraig Ó Tuama on the Gospel</span>:</b><br />
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<a href="https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/259_fifth-sunday-after-pentecost.pdf">https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/259_fifth-sunday-after-pentecost.pdf</a> Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-77826868472060966682020-07-04T21:23:00.004-04:002020-07-04T21:23:51.913-04:00An American Triduum - 2nd of 3 American Feasts
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I love the idea of three days of prayer centered around 3
American Feast Days (this is often called a triduum). I think about the three Feast Days of
America that are centered on summer & our lives as Americans: Memorial Day, Independence Day and
Labor Day. (Next year: I will incorporate some other days we need to include like Pride, Juneteenth, and Indigenous Day) These are appropriate prayers for each of these occasions (from our BCP). It all begins with Memorial Day, and continues today with Independence Day:</div>
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<b>Memorial Day</b><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the
dead; We give you thanks for all your servants who have laid down their
lives in the service of our country. Grant to them your mercy and the
light of your presence, that the good work which you have begun in them
may be perfected; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.</div>
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<b>Independence Day</b><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your
glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our
country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may
use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.</div>
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<b>Labor Day</b><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we
do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we
do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and,
as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the
rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those
who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.</div>
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-55093666426851838912020-07-01T13:04:00.001-04:002020-07-01T13:04:25.260-04:00Wednesday Meditation<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OnVrWecJ86o/XvzBK5nuV4I/AAAAAAAAEHI/gyREA4Gn7fIuRTHg1iY4F79a9tR5dNj_gCK4BGAsYHg/s668/01E4E738-520B-45C0-98E6-97B349C3BA0A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="668" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OnVrWecJ86o/XvzBK5nuV4I/AAAAAAAAEHI/gyREA4Gn7fIuRTHg1iY4F79a9tR5dNj_gCK4BGAsYHg/s320/01E4E738-520B-45C0-98E6-97B349C3BA0A.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Pauli</b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> <b>M</b></span><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">urray</b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_and_political_rights" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Civil and political rights">civil </a>rights activists<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> who became a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawyer" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Lawyer">lawyer</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Women's rights">women's rights</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> activist, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanism" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Anglicanism">Episcopal</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Priest">priest</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, and </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Author">author</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">. Drawn to the ministry, in 1977 Murray was the first </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="African-American">African-American</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, in the first year that any women were ordained by that church. (Wikipedia)</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div>Pauli Murray: <u>Dark Testament Verse 8</u> </div><div><br /></div><div>Hope is a crushed stalk </div><div>Between clenched fingers </div><div>Hope is a bird’s wing </div><div>Broken by a stone. </div><div>Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty —</div><div> A word whispered with the wind, </div><div>A dream of forty acres and a mule, </div><div>A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest, </div><div>A name and place for one’s children </div><div>And children’s children at last . . . </div><div>Hope is a song in a weary throat. </div><div>Give me a song of hope </div><div>And a world where I can sing it. </div><div>Give me a song of faith </div><div>And a people to believe in it. </div><div>Give me a song of kindliness </div><div>And a country where I can live it. </div><div>Give me a song of hope and love </div><div>And a brown girl’s heart to hear it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Liberating God, we thank you for the steadfast courage of your servant Pauli Murray, who fought long and well: Unshackle us from the chains of prejudice and fear, that we may show forth the reconciling love and true freedom which you revealed in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Learn more here:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://satucket.com/lectionary/pauli_murray.html">http://satucket.com/lectionary/pauli_murray.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://paulimurrayproject.org/">https://paulimurrayproject.org/</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/episcopal-explained/episcopal-saint-remembering-pauli-murrays-life-and-work">https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/episcopal-explained/episcopal-saint-remembering-pauli-murrays-life-and-work</a></div>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-61852793354848461342020-06-30T12:38:00.002-04:002020-06-30T12:39:38.492-04:00What should we do with our statues?<p> </p><p class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://sfrichmondreviewcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/dsc03113.jpg?w=639" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://sfrichmondreviewcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/dsc03113.jpg?w=639" width="240" /></a></p><p>I
have been thinking about that question as some statues (monuments) have been torn
down, others protected, and some have been removed by the local
authorities.</p><p></p><p>Some of these monuments may be easy for us to
say they should not be there (like the Confederate Monuments) others we
might disagree with, and others we may want to stay put. Here are some
articles for your consideration:</p><p></p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-to-do-with-confederate-imagery-at-washington-national-cathedral/2015/07/03/e6ce8de8-1e9c-11e5-a135-935065bc30d0_story.html">What to do with Confederate imagery at Washington National Cathedral?</a><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/confederate-monuments-racism.html">You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument</a></p><p><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-i-learned-about-cult-lost-cause-180968426/">How I Learned About the “Cult of the Lost Cause”</a></p><p><a href="https://www.history.com/news/should-america-take-down-monuments-that-romanticize-conquistadors">Should America Take Down Monuments That Romanticize Conquistadors?</a></p><p></p><p>This article looks at it all:<br /></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/protests-statues-reckoning.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/protests-statues-reckoning.html</a> <br /></p><p></p><p>But
this reckoning shouldn't just be done by others, it must be done by the
church too. The photo at the top of this post was a gift from the
Church of England, it sits in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but
there is more to learn...</p><p></p><p><a href="https://sfrichmondreview.com/2019/08/30/gg-parks-hidden-history-treasure-quietly-turns-125/">https://sfrichmondreview.com/2019/08/30/gg-parks-hidden-history-treasure-quietly-turns-125/</a></p><p></p><p>Others see it differently...</p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/drakes-cross-white-supremacy.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/drakes-cross-white-supremacy.html</a></p><p></p><p>The difficulty is whom it honors:</p><p><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1678751581"></a></p><p><a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/francis-drake-slave-trade-english-history-elizabeth-i-why-forgotten-legacy-john-hawkins/">https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/francis-drake-slave-trade-english-history-elizabeth-i-why-forgotten-legacy-john-hawkins/</a></p><p></p><p>What should we do with that Cross?</p><p></p><p>Here the Church of England is already thinking about those questions...</p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/26/church-of-england-justin-welby-white-jesus-black-lives-matter">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/26/church-of-england-justin-welby-white-jesus-black-lives-matter</a> <br /></p>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-16765812394270300772020-06-30T12:01:00.003-04:002020-06-30T12:01:31.638-04:00Thinking about Independence Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.hfcc.edu/sites/hfcmain/files/newsroom/photos/4th-july.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="600" height="292" src="https://www.hfcc.edu/sites/hfcmain/files/newsroom/photos/4th-july.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Midway through our <a href="http://stpetesrock.blogspot.com/2016/05/an-american-triduum-3-american-feasts.html">American Triduum</a>:</div>
<br />
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your
glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our
country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may
use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.<br />
<br />
On July 4th, The Episcopal Church joins others in the United States in celebrating
Independence Day, marking the day the country declared independence
from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776. <br /><br /><b>This is an important op-ed by a fellow Episcopalian: </b><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let me take this opportunity to remind Episcopalians in the United
States that many of us do not consider the words -- "the founders of
this country won liberty for themselves and for us" -- in the
Independence Day collect to be accurate. Look around your congregations
and reflect if all the ancestors of the "us" got their liberty then. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Listen to the words of Collect (BCP, p. 242) for Independence Day July
4th: <br /><br />Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this
country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of
freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of
this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and
peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. <br /><br />This phrase
is only possible because slavery was forgotten—or the “us” was not meant
to include me. A better and approved BCP collect for the 4th is "For
the Nation" (p.258 or p.207): <br /><br />Lord God Almighty, you have made
all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and
in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the
strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with
your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. <br /><br />Also
the Canadians’ Canada Day collect (July 1) also works for us in the USA
and all the other countries in which The Episcopal Church has churches: <br /><br />Almighty
God, whose wisdom and whose love are over all, accept the prayers we
offer for our nation. Give integrity to its citizens and wisdom to those
in authority, that harmony and justice may be secured in obedience to
your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. <br /><br />--Byron Rushing of the House of Deputies </blockquote>
<u><br />A prayer I like for “Our Country” is #18 on page 820 of our BCP: </u><br /><br />Almighty
God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly pray
that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and
glad to do your will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound
learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and
confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our
liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought
hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom
those to whom in your Name we entrust the authority of government, that
there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to
your law, we may show forth your praise among the nations of the earth.
In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the
day of trouble, suffer not our trust in you to fail; all which we ask
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-50549185565835066622020-06-30T11:53:00.000-04:002020-06-30T11:53:08.770-04:00#BlackLivesMatter - Thoughts from our Bishops<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVsAYGWfPGk/XvtfHaozU7I/AAAAAAAAEGw/2DZ4q3LU1l84XpSRCEY__OwL-SuGTmzMgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/25x19-BLEED.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVsAYGWfPGk/XvtfHaozU7I/AAAAAAAAEGw/2DZ4q3LU1l84XpSRCEY__OwL-SuGTmzMgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/25x19-BLEED.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In our Juneteenth letter we also called the people of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to join us in a brief online service of prayer and reflection on the <b>Fourth of July at 9:00 am</b> as we dedicate ourselves to pursuing genuine freedom and independence for all Americans. <br />
<br />
We also invited the people of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to stand up for the dignity and full humanity of Black people in the United States by supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Here a word on how we understand Black Lives Matter might be helpful. For us as white people, our support of Black Lives Matter begins with the recognition that Black people in the United States suffer and die because of the ongoing sins of racism, white-supremacy, and anti-Black bias. These sins fundamentally deny the fullness of the image of God in Black people and result in death-dealing violence as recently witnessed in the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Such violence is fundamentally evil and the work of the devil. As followers of Jesus, we are called to stand in the face of evil and do all in our power to bring about God’s kingdom of justice and love for all.<br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Our support of Black Lives Matter is because we are followers of Jesus. It is our commitment to a spiritual metanoia, a turning around, that de-centers ourselves as white Americans and turns our focus on recognizing and celebrating Black Americans as created in the image of God and thus deserving of the fullness of life guaranteed by the incarnation of Jesus Christ and promised by our nation. As your bishops, we promise to seek to be about this work of transformation at the personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural level. While we encourage you to consider displaying a Black Lives Matter sign in front of your church building as a statement of your commitment to this work, what is more important for us is to understand fully what this movement is truly about, and the importance of staying away from just performative ally-ship. Our call to action as a predominantly white church that has been closely tied to the history of the United States, and thus complicit with and profiting from white-supremacy, is not just to make verbal commitments. It is to inherently change. <br /><br /> As part of that change, the metanoia we are called to as the Body of Christ, our 2018 ECCT Annual Convention committed the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to a season of “Racial Healing, Justice and Reconciliation.” While significant work has been done during this season to confront and overcome the sins of racism, white supremacy, and anti-Black bias, much work remains for us to do. The resolution affirming Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation <a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001k4XC5k3Iuet2mEj906YBW_Hedy37BS5LzZMLpxwEDcefREZu86OYlwYOG_3XE9z33HPYkMfk5DghecOLaQZNj2fKcLKmaur46dCMyLBwlacQRsGtDvQujFHamr2BytKmXTGiHU0fXw7umkeV9YWwXs-E45z2LHDJ6I5FNGQ6p9UdJqeSilvMIHGJ-VRKinhwwLfcrFKjUMJDWpd8Ae1waw==&c=C1RKdymhUkbX0nsGn7aRvLEhsFN2viByfXtyYS-gcKUmKexGhCRcVQ==&ch=gR7x-NzVHCX0Q1OBZihoAbuo69jECb3qGashER76kpszSSNhVxqq-A==">can be found here</a> <br /><br />We give thanks for your faithful leadership of the parishes of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut as together we seek the life-giving ways of Jesus in the midst of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, white supremacy, and anti-Black violence. We pray that God will continue to use all of us as instruments of God’s peace. </blockquote>
<br />A prayer attributed to St. Francis from the Book of Common Prayer, page 833: <br /><br /> <i>Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. <br /> </i><br />Faithfully, <br /> <br />The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas <br />Bishop Diocesan <br /><br />The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens<br />
Bishop Suffragan Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-86542011350413819412020-06-30T11:46:00.002-04:002020-06-30T11:46:38.709-04:00Wecoming Prayer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/PUfY0MQw5Y3n6DlpX-v8BrtUs0vSzROi5I5S1ve0KBclV9K2tVeUoq5hMDm7NvDL3uLG9GtInrPB-nRA7sF6OsKCJf1YUSs-gyoqIDRaVI5Wxx3tVgkDIjT-h76RPo55ZxAQ=s1165" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="807" height="320" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/PUfY0MQw5Y3n6DlpX-v8BrtUs0vSzROi5I5S1ve0KBclV9K2tVeUoq5hMDm7NvDL3uLG9GtInrPB-nRA7sF6OsKCJf1YUSs-gyoqIDRaVI5Wxx3tVgkDIjT-h76RPo55ZxAQ=s320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div></div>
To learn more about the Welcoming Prayer...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://bustedhalo.com/features/what-works-15-the-welcoming-prayer">https://bustedhalo.com/features/what-works-15-the-welcoming-prayer</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/philfoxrose/2013/10/the-welcoming-prayer/">https://www.patheos.com/blogs/philfoxrose/2013/10/the-welcoming-prayer/</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1755718288"><br /></a>
<div><a href="https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/welcomingprayer_printable_0.pdf">https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/welcomingprayer_printable_0.pdf</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myshepherdking.com/the-welcoming-prayer-by-father-thomas-keating/">http://www.myshepherdking.com/the-welcoming-prayer-by-father-thomas-keating/</a><br /></div>
<br /><div>
And a helpful article:</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/2020/06/19/the-welcoming-prayer-in-moments-of-crisis/">The Welcoming Prayer in Moments of Crisis</a>Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912373059906858349.post-60723701738694566122020-06-30T11:34:00.003-04:002020-06-30T11:42:29.093-04:00Proper 8 SermonO Lord, our God, source of all life, you reveal yourself in the depths of our being drawing us to share in your life and love. Bless each of us as we respond to your Spirit’s invitation to open wide the doors to Christ. Make the doors of our hearts & our homes, our church & our communities wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship, narrow enough to shut out all envy, prejudice and pride. Let us hasten to welcome the stranger, and so welcome your Son. We make this prayer in his name, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. <br />
<br />
How do we make others feel welcome? <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For more than fifty of his more than eighty years, Nurney Mason was a barber in the United States House of Representatives. Mason cut hair out of a tiny booth in the basement of the Rayburn Office Building - his little stall saw nearly as much history as the floor of the Capitol itself. And every day, he brought to his job not only his barbering skills, but kindness, optimism and encouragement. He would greet everyone - whether powerful member of Congress or lowest-level staffer - with a solid handshake and a knowing smile. Mason stayed upbeat, day after day, the vibrations of his clippers surely jarring his wrists over the half century he worked. <br />
<br />
He was asked by one of his Congressional customers how he stayed so upbeat and happy all the time. Nurney Mason replied simply, "I just make it right here. I create joy where I stand" [From The President's Devotional by Joshua DuBois.] </blockquote>
<br />
Nurney Mason possesses the heart and soul of hospitality that Jesus exalts in today's Gospel. Mason responds to God's call to create joy where he stood, to reveal God's compassion and peace in his tiny booth to anyone who came by for a haircut. Such is our call, wherever you live and work and play, to welcome everyone into your midst, and to share such joy, even if it’s just a cup of cool water. <br />
<br />
Such stories bring me hope and we can live such joyous welcome in our lives, even with Covid-19. But I want us to go a bit deeper for ourselves. Not just to think of our welcoming others, but how might we welcome Jesus into our lives and hearts… <br />
<br />
And it is important more now than ever… we still have a deadly pandemic all around us, we see the brutal violence of racism, we see an economy in crisis, and there isn’t an end in sight for any of it. <br />
<br />
It is exhausting. It is stressful. It can harm us. How can we still our soul and lift it up to God?<br />
<br />
There is a prayer called the Welcoming Prayer. I spoke of it 3 years ago and want to reintroduce it. “It’s not an ancient practice, though it’s an ancient idea.” Mary Mrozowski of Brooklyn, New York — one of the first leaders of a method called centering prayer — developed this welcoming prayer, inspired by an early 18th century spiritual work. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The Welcoming Prayer is a method of consenting to God’s presence and action in our physical and emotional reactions to events and situations in daily life. The purpose of the Welcoming Prayer is to deepen our relationship with God through consenting in the ordinary activities of our day. It is a "letting go" in the present moment, in the midst of the activity of our ordinary life, and giving it to God. </i></blockquote>
<br />
Practicing the Welcoming Prayer offers us the opportunity to make choices that respond instead of reacting to the present moment. Through the action of the Holy Spirit, the practice empowers us to take appropriate action as freely and lovingly as possible in any situation that presents itself. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"To welcome and to let go is one of the most radically loving, faith-filled gestures we can make in each moment of each day. It is an open-hearted embrace of all that is in ourselves and in the world." — <a href="https://thechapelofthecross.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/140228-with-DFsermonWelcoming-Prayer.pdf">Mary Mrozowski</a> </blockquote>
<br />
Why do this? Why welcome Jesus into ourselves and give over those emotions… Because by stopping for a moment and welcoming God in, we can deal with our thoughts/feelings/emotions/situations. In an old episode of NCIS… <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Palmer: How do you do it — block out fear?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the older agent Gibbs: You don’t. It’s what you do with it. </div>
<br />
If you are struggling with a bad feeling, this method offers a structured way to embrace and accept it, so you can release it and move on. There are three phases to the Welcoming Prayer. You might go directly from one to the next in a single, relatively formulaic prayer sequence. Or you might find yourself staying in one phase as it does its interior work. The three parts are: <br />
<br />
<b>Focus and sink in.<br /> Welcome.<br /> Let go. </b><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. Focus, feel and sink in — Feel the feeling. Don’t run away from it or fight it. Stay with this until you really experience a connection to the feeling or emotion on not just an emotional but also a physical level. <br />
<br />
2. Welcome — Affirm the rightness of where you are and acknowledge God’s presence in the moment by saying: “Welcome, [fear/anger/etc.].” Don’t just say this and move on. Repeat it and sit with the feeling until you experience a genuine sense that you welcome it, that you are not fighting against it and that God is present with you right now. <br />
<br />
3. Let go — Say “God, I give you my [fear/anger/etc.],” or another phrasing if you find it more helpful. At this point, you can turn the feeling or emotion over to God and let it go. If you haven’t truly felt it and welcomed it in, you may still experience resistance here. Stay in the letting go, or turn back to the focus or welcome stages as appropriate.” <br />
<br /></blockquote>
So get comfy. Relax. Slow your breath. Think about what’s most on your mind at the moment. Hold on to it. Feel it in your body. Focus on it, Welcome it & let it go, while I say the words to the prayer…(in the next blog post)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Leanna Tankersley in a book that includes a chapter on the welcoming prayer says this, “I love these lines, this concept, this practice. The Welcoming Prayer takes us out of our heads and into a space where we stop, even for a very few minutes, our analyzing and figuring. We relinquish our strategies and allow God to work within us, in the place where we are far more malleable than our mind. We are opening ourselves up to a divine encounter which is never a bad idea.” (Leanna Tankersley, Brazen, 2016. pg 200). </blockquote>
<br />
Opening up ourselves to a divine encounter… <br />
<br />
This prayer opens us up to welcome Jesus into our very hearts and lives. The welcoming prayer is a way to deal with fear or anything else of our lives, to turn it over to God and welcome God into our very moment, to welcome God who is already in our midst into that fear, emotion or whatever we are dealing with. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Mary Mrozowski, “I am where I need to be. Everything around me includes and hides the sacred.” Amen. </div>
Rev. Kurt Huberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11497143533527057579noreply@blogger.com0