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Dear Families,
The Holy Spirit does move in mysterious and miraculous ways!
In our staff meeting two weeks ago, Louisa Merchant shared the perilous situation of our new Refugee families - accepted into the our country's Refugee program, given the legal documents to work and live here, and promised support for housing for six months (time to find work, schools for kids, learn your way around transportation, shopping, etc.). That six month assistance was cut to one month.
Imagine being dropped in Russia, for instance. You don't know the language. You don't know the laws and customs. You are traumatized from whatever you had to flee. Your family might be depressed and excited, worn out and hopeful, homesick and looking forward to building a new, safe life. Your first priority is probably going to be getting your kids settled, finding where you will get food and how you will get there, and learning where you will get help if needed - medical, legal, financial, etc. And once you do that, you need to find a job which will likely be far away from where you are living, and how will you get there. There is no way to do all of that in one month. And now you are facing the real possibility of your family becoming unhomed, living on the streets that you don't even know.
As the staff all imagined this possibility, the Spirit swept through that room and we started imagining something different, a new possibility that could come to fruition if we saints REALLY became the hands and feet of Christ. We came up with the idea of a "Hallelujah Anyhow" Evening of Celebration, that will have great food, live music and wonderful company, to be held at All Saints' on the evening of Saturday March 29th.
(More details and the opportunity to purchase tickets will be forthcoming. For now, please do save the date!)
For many of us who are trying to figure out what can we do in this time of turmoil and uncertainty, we can do this! We can do this with all of our might! We can invite our neighbors and friends and colleagues and book clubs and Pickle Ball teams and PTA's and workout partners and anyone you know!
“Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” — Proverbs 31:8–9
Let's do this work.
Let's be witnesses of God's love and invite others to do it with us.
Let's be evangelists of a different way, a way of truly loving our neighbors as ourselves.
click here for more information
Peace ,
Kathy
A few goodies that gave me peace over the last few weeks are below:
Songs
Beautiful Things by Gungor
Spencer LaJoye - Plowshare Prayer
A Bigger Table by Matt Maher
Readings/Prayers
Krista Tippett’s words the other day in which she said, “This is an age of devastating tumult. It is an age of magnificent possibility. Much is breaking. Much is being born. The two go hand in hand, and that is one of the deepest and strangest, most terrible and most redemptive truths of human reality.”
From Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life by Arianne Braithwaite Lehn
When I must take a stand
Refugee King,
You linked your only life’s arms
with those who were fleeing
and those who were forgotten,
with those who were abused
and those laid bare to brutality.
From the manger to the cross,
and all the broken places in between,
you bore a truth
the world tried to bury.
You made your home in vulnerable spaces
and I need you to free me from this
prison of privilege so I can
make my home there too.
What I saw and heard and know…
make it burrow into my bones,
becoming the very frame
of a convicted, confessional life.
I sometimes think I must be careful
about taking a stand,
but that never benefits
your suffering ones…
Silence is its own form of speaking….
You say people sharing
what they believe
from a place of humble love
is where things really start turning.
“Be nice,” wasn’t one of your commandments.
Love was.
Is.
Repentance plus courage has
always been the only way forward.
It is what I do now that reveals my
heart’s true treasure.
Will I be an extremist for love,
an agitator for justice,
a holy troublemaker?**
Will I lean in toward those
I don’t even desire to understand,
setting aside evaluation so my
hands can freely embrace curiosity?
Help me transcend my outrage,
instilling in my soul’s eye
the kin-dom whose basic foundation
seems swallowed by those
lost to even themselves.
“What is truth,” a fearful man
with a trembling, hiding heart
asked you.
As your answer, you gave your life.
Please, God of mercy, take mine.
Amen.
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