WELCOMING PRAYER

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Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within.
Amen

Mary Mrozowski
creator and spiritual mother of the welcoming prayer practice

SLOW SUNRISE

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Somehow in your sleep
you’ve grown up
grown deep

Each morning layers
of your life
stack, shift, grow
and have become
eleven years of life

You lie asleep in
a blue van thirty years
older than you
that you once dreamed and
that dream came true

The slow sunrise
across the sand dunes
happens every day
with or without notice
and shifts over time
becoming something new

You wake and stretch
your have grown up
grown deep
and I love the
little girl you’ve
become today

Jared Ray Mackey
15, July, 2020

THE VARIOUS STATES OF AMERICA

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The American project has reached a crossroads and it feels there is very little United in our current moment. We hold different convictions on our origin as a country and divergent hopes on our future. A country once considered by many as a shining exemplar is now a tumultuous teen serving as a cautionary tale. It may be the necessary journey of every nation, in the same way it is the required journey of every human, that there is an ascent and a there is a descent. In the descent character is formed and found, or, the shallow roots are revealed and there is a land slide of loss. What the descent of our American days uncovers is still to be determined. It seems if we are united on anything, it is the agreement that we are living in the hinge of American history. 

In this in-between moment of America those of us who claim to follow the way of Jesus have a distinct opportunity to learn from centuries of Christians who lived and led at similar unsettling times in history. The precipice we are walking along is unique to our time, but not to our Christian tradition. The words and wisdom of Jesus, and the vast majority of the New Testament, was against a backdrop of cultural, ethnic, and political turmoil. We need to revisit our sacred texts to look and listen for the invitation to align our loyalty to the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom that is united. United across all the difference we hold of culture and convictions. 

What if in the great wisdom and expanse of God our different convictions and divergent hopes for our country are all necessary: protestor and investor, loyalist and liberator, progressive and conservative. Can we hold with humility there is no singular solution to the complexity of our time? What conversation could emerge if we considered the American project has been both the place of liberty and slavery, opportunity and oppression? The truth is we live in the Various States of America.  

The year that is 2020 will not pass quietly into the history of our country. We have the unique opportunity to learn and lead in this historic time. May we do so knowing “the weight of our responsibility and the levity of Your grace”.

 

 

Jared Ray Mackey
July 30, 2020

FIDELITY

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It’s becoming increasing difficult in today’s world to trust anything or anybody, for good reason. There’s little that’s stable, safe to lean on, trustworthy. We live in a world where everything is in flux, is flux, where everywhere we see distrust, abandoned values, debunked creeds, people moving on from where they used to be, contradictory information, and dishonesty and lying as socially and morally acceptable.

There is little left of trust in our world. What does this call us to? We’re called to many things, but perhaps nothing more important than fidelity, to be honest and persevering in who we are and what we stand for.

One person’s fidelity makes everyone’s fidelity easier, just as one person’s infidelity makes everyone’s fidelity more difficult. So, inside a world that’s so highly individualistic and bewilderingly transient, when it can feel as if everyone is forever moving away from you, perhaps the greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of our own fidelity, to stay for a long time.

Ronald Rolheiser

RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF POWER TOOLS

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One of my great disappointments when I began volunteering for Habitat for Humanity was restrictions on the use of power tools. It was illogical to me why we wouldn’t use nail guns and sawzalls to build the homes. A hammer and hand saw were incredibly inefficient tools to complete the project. Over several years of volunteering with Habitat I came to understand and respect why they held the restriction. One of the goals was to build a home. But as important was building collaboration, confidence, and community. Power tools were dangerous and divisive. They separated those who could handle, or at least thought they could handle them, and those who chose not to. And certain power tools increased the risk of injury of not only the user, but everyone, on the site.

Digital communication has become an assumed technology and tool of our time. I will compose and distribute this essay with the assistance of digital mediums. Social media is a particular and peculiar form of digital communication. It offers anyone with a smart phone the opportunity to be a journalist, editor, and publicist, entirely on their own. Social media seems to be the most accessible power tool for any and all types of communication projects. My concern is that there are no restrictions, and no clear guidelines, for its’ use. As I listen to dialogues quickly descend into divisions and dissensions I am asking the question if the goal of the project is being missed. Are the tools helping build conversation, collaboration, confidence, and community? Or, are the tools causing injury? Injury not only to everyone else on the site, but in the long run, to the user as well?

This week my 30 something friends confirmed to me that social media is the metric by which we are being measured. One suggested, if you are learning, reading, and even acting on your convictions, but not posting on social media, then none of it counts. That’s overstating it, but it does seem to be the proverbial tree falling in a forrest that no one hears; and therefore has made no sound. 

I am 3 years away from 50, so my convictions may be wholly relegated to a Luddite unwilling, or unable, to keep up. But, from my viewpoint, there are as many 55 year olds as 25 year olds wielding communication power tools with little care. We’ve been given a platform, which to a greater or lesser degree, we’ve all longed for. We have been handed the mic. But, would we hold the mic as securely if everyone who read our words was listening to us over lunch? Digital comments and direct messages do not adequately hold the same space as an interpersonal conversation. I do not believe digital content can adequately accomplish any project of deep change. And, I believe there are injuries occurring because of the power tools being used that impact how, if ever, we will build something together. 

I’m not suggesting substantive content cannot be shared through digital means. I have been introduced to dozens of individuals and institutions through digital media to listen to and learn from. Many people I have only met in passing have provided me with inspiration and instruction for life via digital media. My question is not if the tool can prove to be used for good. My question is if we’ve considered how the tools can also cause harm. Are we willing to slow down and hammer out a conversation? Would the slow work of sawing by hand allow us to feel the impact of the cuts we are making? Are we inspiring those who look and listen in to our lives to join us in the long work of building a better future? 

Habitat is not a home builder. If so, they would be absurdly inefficient, not only because of the lack of power tools, but because they allowed me to be a regular volunteer on their work sites. But Habitat does not only build homes. They build dignity and community. They do so with the restriction of power tools to make the site safe. I am one of thousands who learned how to swing a hammer because of their patient policies. I also came to adopt a “theology of the hammer” because I was invited to labor alongside others. Many of my preconceived perspectives of poverty shifted slowly over the shared work of building a home together. And yes, I took pictures and posted to social media about the work along the way; but the house that would become someone’s home was the centering work we were concentrated on and committed to. 

If our hope is to build a better world, I believe we need to reconsider restrictions on how we use the power tools of digital media. The restrictions will have to be self-imposed, or even better, decided in the context of community. Digital media is a pocket sized power tool. It cuts quickly. It can fastens us to an idea with such little effort. But I do not see it building collaboration, dignity, or community as often as we would hope. My prayer is whatever project we are passionate about, we would use the not only the tools of our time to accomplish it, but patience, discretion, and care to inspire others to build something beautiful with us.

Jared Ray Mackey
June 30, 2020

ABRAHAM LINCOLN SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

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Fellow Countrymen. At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the enerergies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it -- all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissole the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern half part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said f[our] three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

A. Lincoln
April 10, 1865

A LAMENT FOR RACISM

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To lament is to cry out to God, naming the pain and injustice in our world, and in so doing, receiving God’s strength to work for peace.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever?

How long will you hide your face from us?

How long must we wrestle with our thoughts and day after day, have sorrow in our hearts?

How long, O Lord, will injustice fill this nation?

How long, O Lord, will the poor and powerless be treated as less than human?

How long, O Lord, will Black and Brown people have to carry the burden of living a society that drowns out our cries?

Lord, from the founding of this country, to the present day, we grieve that racism has been America’s enduring sin—that racism has been a strategy of evil powers and principalities.

Lord, we grieve, that the protests and policy changes of the past have not eradicated the deep-stain of racial injustice.

Lord, we confess our anger, our deep sadness, our bewilderment, and our collective sense of weakness to see this world healed through our own strength.

Lord, we lament the way the church has often been complicit in racist behavior.

We lament the ways that the church has often turned its head, focusing on souls, to the exclusion of Black and Brown bodies.

Lord, we lament, that although we identify with the name of Jesus, we often don’t live like Jesus.

We lament that Ahmaud Arbery couldn’t go for a jog without putting his life in great danger.

We lament that Breonna Taylor couldn’t sleep peacefully in her own home, but was found to be unjustly killed in the middle of the night.

We lament that George Floyd would be callously killed by someone who was sworn to protect.

We lament that it takes millions of people to raise our voices to hold people accountable for wrongdoing and abuse of power.

Lord, we lament, that the powers of our society have often seen Black life as disposable.

So, God of justice, we call on your name.

God of righteousness, hear the words that signal our pain.

God of the oppressed, show yourself strong.

God of healing, make right everything that’s wrong.

Lord, we grieve that in this society, not everyone can breathe.

We grieve that Black men and women too often can’t breathe.

We grieve that Brown men and women too often can’t breathe.

We grieve that poor men and women too can’t breathe.

But Lord, in your kingdom, we ALL can breathe.

In your kingdom, the breath of life is for everyone.

In your kingdom, you breathe life and we come alive.

So, Lord, breathe on us.

Breathe on this nation.

Breathe on the lawmakers.

Breathe on the church.

Lord Jesus, your kingdom is good news for a world caught in racial injustice and hostility.

We ask that you would give us grace for the deep challenges facing our country.

And in the power of the Holy Spirit, empower us to see your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Rich Villodas is the Lead Pastor at New Life Fellowship in Queens, NY. He offered this prayer of lament in front of the Queens Criminal Courthouse in New York City prior to a two-mile protest march.

THE FIRST DUTY OF LOVE IS TO LISTEN

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The first task is to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening. Reproaches, reactions, defenses may be justified in terms of proportional justice. But perhaps they would prove to be unjust if there were more mutual listening.

All things and all men, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.

Paul Tillich
Love, Power, and Justice