Midweek Musings: May 26, 2022

Dear Friend,

I had a whole Midweek Musings ready to go for this week and then the shooting at the school in Texas happened on Tuesday and everything I had found and written felt empty. So we’ll save that Musings for another week and start again.

Except I don’t know what to say. I think I’ve written and discarded two pages worth of “musings”. Some of them were full of lament, some full of anger and frustration, some full of words that felt like they were meant to soften the moment. But none of those feel right, at least, not entirely.

So, instead, I think I just want to offer space. Space for all the feelings and thoughts. Space for the numbness and disbelief. Space for all of it. Because we have to keep holding these spaces; as hard as it is, we have to keep being heartbroken and outraged and nauseated. Because the alternative is allowing this kind of violence to become commonplace, acceptable, and part of our norm. And we must fight against that.

So know that I am holding space for all that you are feeling and thinking in these days, and I am here to listen anytime. 

Pastor Sarah

something Worth reading

Praying in an Apocalypse

by Sarah Bessey

This email essay from author Sarah Bessey is from last May, but it continues to resonate with me, especially when the news of the world begins to feel like it is spinning out of control. There’s a lot in here about prayer and finding new ways to pray as well as faith and finding new ways to have faith (it pairs nicely with Kristin Ansari’s sermon from this past Sunday—you should email Kathy for a copy if you missed it). In particular, these four paragraphs stand out to me:

“These days feel apocalyptic to us precisely because they are. The apocalypse has touched our lives and the answers we were once given, the prayers we once prayed, the certainties we once took for granted, our political opinions, our leaders, all of these have crumbled like the house built on a foundation of sand in Jesus’ parables.

“Prayer can feel futile in times of apocalypse. What’s the point of prayer now? And yet an apocalypse can expand our invitation to prayer. I learned this by paying attention to who keeps praying during an apocalypse. I learned this by sitting at the feet of Korean grandmothers in prayer circles and Black church leaders of the past and present and my dear friend who prays blessings for others while literally undergoing her own cancer treatments. Prayer isn’t inactivity or passivity there; it is the practice to keep us rooted to God and one another as we keep loving in the face of fear, contending for hope in the midst of despair, fighting for justice in our world.

“Prayer keeps us engaged with God and with the work and with each other. 

“But reimagining prayer for an apocalypse begins with honesty. In acknowledging the heaviness of our grief and sorrow, we can broaden our hope and our capacity for joy. We don’t need to pretend we aren’t angry, that we aren’t cynical or afraid, that we aren’t feeling hopeless or uncomfortable, anxious or exhausted. Our prayers can be laments of grief or cries for justice and challenge. It’s often only in naming those things that we find room to reclaim an imagination for hope and healing and goodness. We get to yell, weep, give thanks, sit in silence until we sink down in the love of God that has always been holding us whether we knew it or not. Praying these days is also an act of resistance at this moment in our time, a way for us to open our hearts and minds to love. It is worthwhile. Perhaps never more than when we find ourselves filled with longing and rage and grief.”

Read the full email here.

something worth hearing

Slumber My Darling

Yo-Yo Ma · Edgar Meyer · Mark O’Connor · Alison Krauss · Stephen C. Foster
This song came up on my Nighttime playlist last night while I was lying with Hannah in her bed. Hannah has many objections to my musical taste and so often insists that I skip songs, but this is one we both like and one that feels sadly appropriate to the moment.

something worth watching

Growing Mango Tree From Seed (One Year)

Boxlapse
There’s something comforting and inspiring about watching this seed grow into a plant. It reminded me of a dance and provided some comfort in these days of death.

something worth praying

A Prayer for the Tired, Angry Ones

Laura Jean Truman

God,

We’re so tired.

We want to do justice, but the work feels endless, and the results look so small in our exhausted hands.

We want to love mercy, but our enemies are relentless, and it feels like foolishness to prioritize gentleness in this unbelievably cruel world.

We want to walk humbly, but self-promotion is seductive, and we’re afraid that if we don’t look after ourselves, no one else will.

We want to be kind, but our anger feels insatiable.

Jesus, in this never-ending wilderness, come to us and grant us grace.

Grant us the courage to keep showing up to impossible battles, trusting that it is our commitment to faithfulness, and not our obsession with results, that will bring in Your shalom.

Grant us the vulnerability to risk loving our difficult and complicated neighbor, rejecting the lie that some people are made more in the image of God than others.

Grant us the humility of a decentered but Beloved self.

As we continue to take the single step that is in front of us, Jesus, keep us from becoming what we are called to transform. Protect us from using the empire’s violence—in our words, in our theology, in our activism, and in our politics—for Your kingdom of peace.

Keep our anger from becoming meanness.

Keep our sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.

Keep our hearts soft enough to keep breaking.

Keep our outrage turned toward justice, not cruelty.

Remind us that all of this, every bit of it, is for love.

Keep us fiercely kind.

Amen.


from A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal

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