Category: Belonging

2024 election, A blessing for voters, Activism, anxiety, Belonging, Betrayal, Bewilderment, Bitterness, Calm, Challenge, Change, Community activism, Courage, Darkness, Daybreak, discouragement, Exclusion, Faith, God, God's presence, God’s creation, healing, Heartbreak, Hope, Kneeling Places, Lament, Liberty, Mourning, Patriotism, Pilgrim, Politics, Pondering, Prayer, Repair the world, Rev. Kathy Manis Findley, Unanswered Prayer

Prayer in Response to Tragic Victory

Rev Kathy


Together, we will transform our grief into a force for change that will build a more just, equitable society that respects the dignity of all people.

— Omar Angel Perez,  Immigrant Justice Director, Faith in Action

This is my prayer of Hope for the living of these days and my lament for almost losing my faith. It is a too-long treatise, because I release my profound grief through writing. It’s a too-long lesson to teach my class, because at our meeting time, everyone is a spent body of exhaustion that can hardly respond to dark and serious topics. It’s a too-long sermon to preach, because at minute 38.6, the congregation will start leaving. Most of all, it is a too-long dumping of grief. But still my prayer

Guard your hearts and may the week ahead freshen your hope, Kathy

Creator, Spirit of God, Star of the Morning, Son of the Dawn ~

We give you praise for creating each of us and placing us in the brilliance of Holy Light because last Tuesday’s election has left so many of us in a very dark place. We thank you, Creator God, for naming us your beloved children, even if others name us with hurtful words. Yes, it is true, this past election week has been hurtful to so many people. In fact, the entire election season has caused anxiety for at least a few of us. And the outcome? Well, God, I almost said you let us down, but I know better. Still “let down” is only a fraction of the emotion that now hangs closely around us. So, God, if you wouldn’t spare us from our president elect, could you please touch our souls with a gentle hand of comfort and hope.

Gentleness is one thing we need, maybe to minimize the harsh names and the contempt we have endured from our misogynistic brothers and sisters. The outcome of the election has left us feeling disconnected from many of our friends, neighbors and family members. God, you know our emotions and you understand our sense of feeling discarded. You know our fear, confusion and despair. Help us, Mother snd Father God, to remember that you have whispered our names. We are your beloved daughters facing the world with the name you gave us.

One election! Just one has this much power over us! We must have taken a wrong path somewhere along the way, because repairing the world was the real goal, and our destination was to create a community of love, care and decency. We did not make it there, God, and we feel a bit like pilgrims and strangers in a land we have never seen before. We imagine how exiles must feel, and recall a letter from Jeremiah to people in exile, “You will search for me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.”

It was just an election, but it rocked us to the core and left us wandering aimlessly on unfamiliar paths and turns. Yet, we are comforted still by sensing your presence with us. Every journey has paths and turns that can lead us to unexpected danger and unprecedented harm. Paths and turns can be disconcerting and downright frightening. Paths and turns leave us in uncomfortable unknown places, so that our feet walk in unfamiliar dust. Paths and turns can lead us away from all we’ve known, our comfort-place, our “home.” 

Protecting God, can you stay close to us on this harsh path ahead and protect us?

Now, God, we know you have a teaching moment for us, for to you this rocky path we follow is a holy pilgrimage. We can learn and take in the reality that paths and turns can also lead us to holy moments. Those sacred moments can inspire us to search more fervently for you, God. We did not stop believing in a new season of unity. But someone more powerful than we are has taken over our lives.

Still this week of sorrow is about more than just one election.
It is also about hurtful memories of being pushed out because of who we are or what we look like. 
It’s about the pain of being “othered” and never fitting in.
It’s about being diminished over and over again.
It’s about people who need to measure us by our wealth or power. 

There are so many better measures out there. Help us God, to throw away false tools that can only try to measure who we are, but can never measure the Light in our souls or the dreams of our hearts.

For our nation, O God, we ask for seemingly impossible unity and for as much love as we can muster between brothers and sisters. We ask you, God, to restore our hope, bring us to our feet, teach us to stand and set us on our path once again.

God, make of us peacemakers, consolers, and healers of harm. Help us control our tongues, so that we Will always speak respectfully of others. Help us spend holy moments in lament and deep prayer that can re-enliven our souls.

I confess, God, that I am failing at that right now. My soul is filled with anger and disgust. My spirit is not at one with love, but with hate directed at those who managed to do this shameful thing to our nation. I am full of confusion about how this happened; what exactly has happened; what will the repercussions be; how serious is the threat to our future; and specifically what must I do now as one person to minimize the harm for myself and all of us?

In such a time as this, God, I see myself kneeling in your holy presence with a shattered spirit and a broken heart. I see myself questioning how it is that you have the ability and the will to organize the universe, but you do not. I need the breath of Spirit to order my thoughts. I need moments of confession to name my sins. I need to repent of my own actions, whatever they are, because my action or inaction may have helped cause the results of this election.

Even now, leaders—that is political people, elected officials, teachers and professors, ministers, rabbis, Imams, priests, bishops, chaplains, etc.—are encouraging us with hope. Emails still flood my inbox, like, “We can’t give up. Let’s roll up our sleeves.” I have noticed that many people say they can’t think about it right now. They are wise to stop and tend to the grief in their souls.

I feel useless, dismissed, disrespected and weary, God. I even feel that I have completely lost my hope for brighter days. I know that losing hope is a dire place to be, because losing hope almost admits that I have also lost my faith. Yet, even in this very moment, God, you are whispering to me:

“Beloved daughter, you are not just ‘one person,’ You are one person of God. A child of God. A beloved daughter. A woman whose spirit is whole with a sacred calling to shepherd the lost and weary ones.”

When circumstances, words, or people threaten us, God, help us respond with decisiveness, truth, kindness, grace, forgiveness, and respect for our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and friends, our classmates and co-workers. Because being harsh to one another can not quickly heal the wounds of political discord, or any other kind of near-fatal wound. It will take time to cast out the dark presence whose only purpose is to darken our souls and leave us in profound darkness.

In this goal, in this time, God, the dark presence has succeeded, and we need you, God, more than ever. We see the truth that we are dangerously vulnerable right now, and that we must fight against spiritual despondency. 

Creator, Spirit of God, Star of the Morning, Son of the Dawn ~ hold us near until the danger has passed. (If it ever passes!) If you can, God, speak peace to the dark presence that is still maneuvering that will harm our democracy and our souls. 

Hold us close in the brilliance of your Light, Creator God! 

Place us securely in your Light, Star of the Morning!

Hold us fast in your Light, Spirit of God!

Draw near to us and grant us Light to see daybreak, Son of the Dawn!

Mother and Father God, we will stand tall in the evil day, if you will help us refresh the Light that lights the world and brightens our hearts.

In this evil day, God, meet us in our sacred place. As we lament, restore our hope and strengthen our faith in this time of grief and confusion. Restore our spirits, God. Restore my spirit, God! 

Creator God, Mother and Father of the universe, fill us to overflowing once again. Cover our bodies and fill our souls with fresh hope, the living hope that guards our faith from any evil.

Amen.

Abundance, All Things New, Beginning again, Belonging, Bewilderment, Change, Comfort, Contemplation, Daybreak, Dreams, Fear, Freedom, God's love, Grace, healing, Heartbreak, I am enough!, Joy, New Life, Re-claiming self, Rev. Kathy Manis Findley, Sorrow, Tears, Weeping

Wide and Wondrous

Rev Kathy

How true it is that when we know nights of sorrow, when weeping is all we can muster, that daybreak does eventually come as it always has. And with the rising of the sun, perhaps our tears are replaced with at least some measure of inner joy.

The universe is wide and wondrous, full of love, full of grace, and sparked by freedom. Those three—love, grace and freedom—are the things we most need, all of us.

I offer you this meditation, praying that you are surrounded in love, that you know the grace that accepts every part of yourself, and that you feel the the freedom to run with the wind in wide and wondrous places, toward your dreams.

As you continue the quiet time you claim for yourself today, I hope you will be be inspired and comforted by this beautiful choral piece by the brilliant composer Elaine Hagenberg, ”All Things New.”

Poem by Frances Havergal
and text adapted from
Revelation 21:5-6

Light after darkness, gain after loss
Strength after weakness, crown after cross;
Sweet after bitter, hope after fears
Home after wandering, praise after tears

Alpha and Omega
Beginning and the end
He is making all things new
Springs of living water
Shall wash away each tear
He is making all things new
​
Sight after mystery, sun after rain
Joy after sorrow, peace after pain;
Near after distant, gleam after gloom
Love aftеr wandering, life after tomb

Belonging, Beloved Community, Matthew 17, Rejection, Transfiguration of the Lord

Beloved Community

Rev Kathy

Outside is gloomy and raining today. Although I love rain — drizzly rain, soft rain, even driving earth altering rain — I can do without the gloomy part. Still, when there is gloominess around me, it invites me into contemplative moments. Those reflective kind of moments when transfiguration happens. And so today, the rainy drizzle leads my reflection to two places — to the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus and to the story of Yonah, who sings “Stranger to the Rain” in the theatrical production of “Children of Eden.”

This, in fact, is the Sunday of the Transfiguration of the Lord. In remembering the story that is told by all four Gospel writers and referred to by Apostles Peter and Paul, I always recall the response of three of Jesus’s disciples — Peter, James and John. On that high mountain with Jesus, they experienced a high moment when Jesus was transfigured. I always wonder what their soul emotions might have been when they witnessed Jesus glowing with a dazzling, holy light. Might they have felt fear, awe, exhilaration? Could they have felt that in that light, something holy rose up in them?

However they might have felt inside, they must have felt some sort of draw, something beckoning them to stay there on the holy mountain. They wanted to stay in the radiance of these moments with Jesus and with the Prophets Elijah and Elisha. They may have just wanted to be together in that beloved community.

From Chapter 17 of Matthew’s Gospel . . .

17 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Whatever the reason — being together in community, taking in the bright radiance, or being immersed in the miracle — the disciples wanted to stay on the mountain and to be in that holy moment together. Isn’t what all of us want? Don’t we all long for holy moments? Don’t we all want to be a part of beloved community?

Throughout this pandemic’s long season of isolation, many people are experiencing the loss of community, the loss of being together with the people they care about. I have heard stories of this kind of loss from countless people, and usually they are also mourning being away from their places of worship. They mourn for the loss of being together and for the loss of their holy places. Like the disciples, it seems that being together and being in holy places is what they need.

I have thought about those needs, the attraction of them, the longing for them. My conclusion is that these are places where people are accepted, unconditionally. We want to be with people who do not ostracize us, in worship places that never name us unworthy or turn us away. Being ostracized always hurts no matter the reason. But people are ostracized every day — for their race, their religion, their gender identity. People are ostracized every day for simply being who they are, because “who they are” does not fit in to someone’s world of acceptable people. People ostracizing other people has been a shameful reality through the ages.

I have been ostracized many times in my life, for many reasons. The idea of being ostracized brings to mind one of my favorite musicals, “Children of Eden.” Act 2 begins with the story of Noah and his sons preparing the ark before the great flood. It seems God is about to ostracize all the earth’s people except Noah, his family and their gathering of animals. But Noah’s story has another arc, the story of his youngest son, Japheth and his future bride, Yonah.

Because of the imminent flood, Japheth is on a deadline to find a partner to bring on the arc. Japheth doesn’t want his father to choose for him, because he is already in love with someone. He announces he will bring his future bride to dinner. Noah and the family eagerly prepare to meet Yonah, but Yonah is not the kind of woman they expected.

Japheth tries to bring his true love Yonah, the servant girl, to the table, but Noah stops him. Yonah bears the mark of Cain and this causes a furor. Yonah is not one of them. She is of another race. Japheth is furious that his family rejected her and storms off just as animals start appearing on their way to the ark.

After every person and animal is onboard the ark, Noah sees Yonah standing alone and apologizes that he can not take her with him. Left alone, the “black girl bearing the mark of Cain” feels the devastating pain of rejection. Filled with emotion and overcome with sadness, Yonah sings “Stranger To The Rain,” singing of her pain of being ostracized, how she is accustomed to being rejected, but she also sings of her resilience to bear it. “I’ve learned not to tremble when I hear the thunder roar. I don’t curse what I can’t change . . . I won’t say I’ve never felt the pain, but I am not a stranger to the rain.”

I find priceless wisdom in the words Yonah sings.

Shed no tears for me
There’ll be rain enough today
I’m wishing you godspeed
As I wave you on your way
This won’t be the first time
I’ve stayed behind to face
The bitter consequences
Of an ancient fall from grace
I’m a daughter of the race of Cain
I am not a stranger to the rain
 
Orphan in the storm
That’s a role I’ve played before
I’ve learned not to tremble
When I hear the thunder roar
I don’t curse what I can’t change
I just play the hand I’m dealt
When they lighten up the rations
I tighten up my belt
I won’t say I’ve never felt the pain
But I am not a stranger to the rain
 
And for the boy who’s given me the sweetest love I’ve known
I wish for him another love so he won’t be alone
Because I am bound to walk among the wounded and the slain
And when the storm comes crashing on the plain
I will dance before the lightning to music sacred and profane
 
Oh, shed no tears for me
Light no candle for my sake
This journey I’ll be making
Is one we all must make
Shoulder to the wind
I’ll turn my face into the spray
And when the heavens open
Let the drops fall where they may
If they finally wash away the stain
From a daughter of the race of Cain
I am not a stranger to the rain
 
Let it rain

She describes herself as an “orphan in the storm.” And the truth is that, at times, I have described myself as an orphan. It is a feeling of being alone, being put out and rejected, being told you do not belong, being ostracized. I hate that feeling, but I love the feeling of being “one” with my community and “one” with God — Beloved Community.

Here is an audio of “Stranger to the Rain.” I wonder if you can imagine Yonah standing alone, Noah looking at her with guilt. She looks at Japheth who stands far away, sometimes turning away from her, for looking at her is too painful.