a few thoughts to share to hold space with those who are hurting...
💙💗 "Blessed are the communities that surround us when we fall apart.
Knowing we can’t do this alone, and trusting that even if we don’t have the answers or the right words to say or know exactly what to do, we will continue to show up. Again and again and again. Because that’s what love demands: to let our hearts break, together." - Kate Bowler
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Article from the National Catholic Reporter
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Article I shared in my classroom management class yesterday:
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"Body weary.
Mind numb.
Heart troubled.
Soul disquieted.
Still, always beloved of God.
So, I will do justice (even more passionately), love mercy (even more faithfully), and walk humbly (even more authentically). I will also pray for those who cannot pray, hope for the those who can't hope, and believe for those who cannot believe.
Weary, numb, troubled, disquieted ... shaped by Love."
-Amy Figg (Knoxville pastor at St. John's Lutheran)
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Words by Jan Richardson:
"So may we know
the hope
that is not just
but for this day—
here, now,
in this moment
that opens to us:
hope not made
of wishes
but of substance,
hope made of sinew
and muscle
and bone,
hope that has breath
and a beating heart,
hope that will not
keep quiet
and be polite,
hope that knows
how to holler
when it is called for,
hope that knows
how to sing
when there seems
little cause,
hope that raises us
from the dead—
not someday
but this day,
every day,
again and
again and
again."
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from Winn Collier: "Jesus says some wild, wild things. The challenge for those who win is how they can also seek the good of those who lose, those who've been cast as enemies. I used to think the "enemy" language was hyperbole we use in our national experiment, but I don't think that any more. So:
'But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you...Do to others as you would have them do to you...But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."'
"Champion the Enemy’s Need"
Ask about your enemy's wounds and scars.
Seek his hidden cause of trouble.
Feed your enemy's children.
Learn their word for home.
Repair their well.
Learn their sorrow's history.
Trace their lineage of the good.
Ask them for a song.
Make tea. Break bread.
- Kim Stafford
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Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.
-from Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”
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This my dear, is the greatest challenge
To being alive:
To witness
The injustice
Of the world,
And not allow it
To consume our Light.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
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Austin Channing Brown, Black activist and writer, asks us to consider what the alternative is to hope. She asks, “Would you rather have chosen apathy? Would you have rather chosen silence? Would you have rather swallowed yourself whole? Surely not…What is at stake is dignity and your dignity is always the right thing to fight for. You must hope because you are worthy.”
💙💗 from Scott the Painter:
💙💗These are grounding words from the wonderful Becca Stevens (founder of Thistle Farms and priest at St. Augustine's in Nashville)
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