Dear Friends,

February 12th is recognized as the birthday of Abraham Lincoln who, to the best of his ability, attempted to unify a very broken and divisive country. February 12th is also the anniversary of two justice related events.

NAACP Day commemorates the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on February 12, 1909. This day marks the establishment of one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. The NAACP was created by a diverse group of activists, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, to combat racial discrimination and promote equal rights. The day serves as a reminder of the continuous work needed to achieve true equality. It encourages public support for the NAACP’s mission to eliminate racial discrimination and promote social justice​.

National Freedom to Marry Day is a non-official United States holiday held annually on February 12 to promote same-sex marriage. The holiday was founded in 1998 by Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy law firm based out of Washington, DC. The most notable National Freedom to Marry Day was February 12, 2004, when, following a directive from San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom to his county clerk, the City and County of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On February 10, Newsom asked the clerk's office to make the changes on the "forms and documents used to apply for and issue marriage licenses… in order to provide [them] on a non–discriminatory basis."

In this very chaotic time, it is good for us to not only learn about these events in history, but to allow them to give us hope that, although there is much work to do, we can still be agents for change.

In the Way of Love,

Debbie

This Sunday

Parish Prayer List

Please keep the following in your prayers:

Christine, Reny Sparapani, Gary Young, Amy, Paul, Chuck Brown, Heather and Prescott, Ariana, Sheridan, Javy, Faith Aroko and Family, Jesse Hurst and Family, Neal and Maureen Joyce, Arthur, Deb Young, Cindy Rhodes, Ron, Gerald Tucker, Allison Mascolo, Melissa Glassman, Max Joyce, Marc Britt, those battling cancer, especially Faith’s friend and the Princess of Wales, for Mel, Corey MacNeil, Dianne, Michael Towey, Jenny, Loretta and Kris, Priscilla Lemons, Deb Papps, Derek Fuller and Family, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and their ministries; the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Salem, the Salem Public Schools and for an end to racism, war, anti-Semitism, gun violence and oppression. In thanksgiving, we pray for this community of faith, for God’s grace and forgiveness, for those with the courage to stand up to tyranny, for Black History Month, for creation, for the diversity of people, and for all the blessings of this life.

If you have prayer requests, please email prayerlist@gracechurchsalem.org by Tuesday at noon for publication in that week's e-news.