The Reign of God...

 

Does anyone want to go to church and have their solidarity and service with others affirmed?

This post is for people who want to listen in and feel that they have been to church and had their solidarity and service with others fully affirmed. We post videos from Bishop Barber and the Poor People's Campaign often, we rejoice in the warmth from All Souls Unitarian Church, we are affirmed by Pastor Gadson (and we have many posts up from him), the hymns and music here touches us, and the talk by Claude AnShin Thomas models sobriety and service for us. We don't expect anyone listen to all of these. Please take your pick and please listen in to what feels right to you.

From Greenleaf Christian Church, with Bishop William Barber and so many other great people witnessing to righteousness and justice. Just click on the screen and you will see the clip---no need to leave us.

 

From All Souls Unitarian Church---A great sermon!

Pastor Anthony F. Gadson preaching

A wonderful bluegrass gospel hymn from Ralph Stanley 

"Peace in Every Step" - Claude AnShin Thomas at the First Unitarian Church of Dallas

I'll Fly Away - Ransomed Bluegrass

You Fight On - (Church on fire with the Holy Ghost) - Plymouth Rock Church Choir

Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church: This is the 115th weekly report on those who survive on the streets.

Feeling Closed in

This is the 115th weekly report on those who survive on the streets. As I hand out donated food and supplies to anyone I see sleeping on the sidewalk or alleyways, my eyes dart everywhere looking for those who stay hidden and seem to be the most vulnerable.

The young girl hides behind a cardboard carton that used to have fruit in it.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“What do you think?” she responds with a sneer. Her lower lip quivers and she shakes her head.
“I had a nice place to sleep behind a trash bin but the police came. I put my jacket over my head and ran. I don’t know where they expect up to go when they chase us out of everywhere. I wasn’t bothering anybody. Then some guys showed up and wanted me to (you know) and when I wouldn’t, they kept hitting me until I had no fight left. I feel like one big bruise.”

“Do you want a lift to Healthcare for the Homeless? They will treat you with no question.” I say.

“No,” she shouts. If they start asking about my age, the police will send me back home. And I rather kill myself than go back to where my stepfather comes into my room every night. My mother doesn’t care. She says it will help me grow up. But I feel like the walls close in on me and I can’t breathe.”

I hand her a water bottle, food and other supplies through my window. She looks around first to see if anyone is watching and then quickly takes them. Carefully, she opens up the backpack and starts eating the cheese crackers.

“Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know I was so hungry. My stomach stays in knots.”

As I hand over a striped tiger beanie baby, she looks at it from every angle. “This will be my good luck charm to keep predators away.” She strokes the little tiger and gives me a crooked smile.

I wish her luck and drive on, discovering my own stomach is tied in knots seeing a teenager try to cope with too much.

Stopping near one gas station where a lot of street people gather, a woman detaches herself from the group and tells me she is a nurse. “I’ve seen you before handing out food. That’s nice. I’m going back to school soon. I’m not staying here.”

Jane has been at this corner for months, saying the same thing. I don’t know if she has dementia or something else but she is stuck in the same story, told in the same words each time. Mental illness accounts for at least 60 percent of people on the street, some calm and some violent. There are so many different stories about how people who are confused try to cope.

Nest, I stop near a man slumped over on a city trash bin. He is sitting on a cushion but no obvious backpack or possessions. He wakes up and walks to the car when I call out that I have food.

“How are things going?” I ask as I hand him a backpack full of food and supplies. He pulls out the socks first and then the Cracker Jacks.

“How did you know that I need socks. Mine rotted off. Cracker Jacks—I have had that since I was a child.”

He carefully adjusts the straps on the back pack and tries it on. “Perfect,” he says. “Thank you and God Bless You. Usually, no one sees me. I’m surprised you stopped. I guess I feel like I have become invisible. People don’t even look away, they just don’t see me anymore.”

He continues, “I have learned the small ways to survive out here but I have forgotten how to plan big things, like getting a job. I feel trapped in seeing everyone just sit and stare. Doing nothing wears me out and I find myself sleeping during the day just because I am so tired.”

“Thanks for seeing me,” he says as he continues to eat the food.

I have discovered that there is no one solution to poverty. Trying to fix people or circumstances in one comprehensive swoop doesn’t work. Fixing is a way to gain control over the uncertainty in my life and the lives of those I see in poverty. Trying to find quick solutions can become an obsession to avoid whatever makes me uncomfortable. People don’t need fixing, like it is a mechanical issue. They need to establish relationships and to find resources.

Above all, they need someone to listen to them and notice that they are visible.

Poverty, hunger, homelessness, mental illness, addictions, abuse, violence and joblessness require a radical change in our culture. It requires a restructuring of how to share and distribute resources to include every level of society. We can no longer ignore the growing fragmentation occurring in families no longer able to afford basics such as food and rent. I have lived in developing countries like India and Ethiopia where the majority of the population is consumed by poverty. We seem to be heading down that same path.

With the massive climate change fires, especially north of Albuquerque, so many people are losing their homes and means of sustenance. I fear for those who are trying to move back into society when prices are still rising, even if their homes had not burned down.

I am amazed that people are still sending me gift cards to help the poor when there are so many demands on your money. Thank you for continuing to help in Albuquerque and in your own location. And thank you who are working on systematic change in our culture. We are all together in this and it is not easy for any of us.

Have mercy. Spread kindness, nourish Mother earth, be generous to the stranger and respect those you encounter. Embody hope. Laugh.

Remember their names and stand up against hatred

 

"This tired and troubled old world needs a change..."

This tired and troubled old world needs a change. All around the world people are living in days of struggle, sorrow, and uncertainty. Their light grows dim. Their energy diminishes. Hope flickers on the windowpane, like a candle near the end of its brightness, a pale light left to stand alone against the coming of the night. This old world needs a rescue, a rebirth, a renewal. It needs a new way of thinking and of being. It needs more than a candle. Lift up the torch of what you believe. Hold it high for others to see. Tell them change is coming. Tell them a new light is coming into this world. Tell them to look up and see how brightly countless torches shine in the night, all waiting for the dawn.
~ Steven Charleston is a Native American elder, author, and retired Episcopal bishop of Alaska. Professor of Native American Ministries at Saint Paul School of Theology OCU and Citizen of the Choctaw Nation. https://stevencharleston.com/

The Poor People's Campaign & Bishop Barber in Los Angeles on May 16

The video works just fine despite what it says. Just click on it on and sit back and watch. And then take some good action.

The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston: "Our community is grounded in serenity, but not in passivity. It is a place where people can think, cooperate and take action..."

"Let us be clear: we are building a community. A place where people of all walks of life can come and be respected for who they are as people of value. We are constructing a haven for them, for ourselves, for any who will join us. Our community is grounded in serenity, but not in passivity. It is a place where people can think, cooperate and take action. We are an active community, intent on making a difference in this world. Our space is the vast expanse of the internet. Our agenda is peace and transformation. Our membership is no membership: only a welcoming hand to any who still believe in the power of love and hope."

--The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church

Where Our Dedication To Social Change Comes From

Stubborn beauty:

The need to investigate and understand the conditions that people live under and work with
every day without prejudice:

The understanding that we are called to freedom and that the tasks of liberation commit us to a long road and a message and work of salvation:

The knowledge that the solidarity of the oppressed, the poor, the working-class, and those who suffer under the present systems of oppression is faith in action and is necessary to all of us becoming our authentic and best selves. From solidarity, authenticity, transformation and repentance, and removing the systems of oppression enemies become cooperators and justice rules:

The knowledge that were fallible, that we need to study and work together, that we need to approach one another and the tasks of liberation with humility and purpose:

That we must speak honestly from our lived experiences and listen to others without interrupted or imposing ourselves and that whatever silences the oppressed is sinful. Compassion and solidarity are our ends and our means:

That if we believe in Christ's resurrection then we must believe in the resurrection of the oppressed and the triumph of a system of life (God's Kin-dom) over a system of death and the idolatry of putting profits and war over people and creation:  

Because we have a great cloud of witnesses urging us forward:

Because we are challenged to live better and more authentic lives and we can't do that by ourselves. We find ourselves in others and through others and we come to see the image of God in others through solidarity, humility, failures and the resolve to do better, taking action and winning, introspection and communal examination and worship, and starting over every day with what we have learned and alongside those who we are traveling with:

  

A Splendid Lenten Reflection By Grace Okerson

It was a joy for me to read this brief Lenten Devotional written by Grace Okerson and sent on by the Methodist Federation for Social Action.

2022 Lent Devotional: Week 5

By Grace Okerson

“Without community, there is no liberation...but community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.” – Audre Lorde

This quote by Audre Lorde always reminds me that liberation is intricately connected to the company we keep; we are all connected---for better or for worse.

So much of my personal and professional work over the past five years has been centered around being connected to those around me, especially those on the margins. I served as a missionary through the General Board of Global Ministries for two years in Detroit, MI with the NOAH Project tackling issues around homelessness. It was there that I developed a deep passion for social justice and mission. It was that work in Detroit and the glaring intersection between homelessness and mass incarceration that fed my passion and interest of prison abolition and led me to seminary which has informed my advocacy and work in ways I could not have imagined. Those that I worked alongside were different than I was, but it was those differences that fueled a beautiful relationship full of awe and wonder. It was those differences that made it clear that there was work to be done together if the liberation of all God’s people was to be achieved.

As Christians, we need to focus on liberation. Liberation and freedom are a part of God’s intention for humanity. When looking at creation and the imago Dei, we can see that God’s intention for humanity was mutuality, respect, and valuing of one another. God’s intention was for all humans to have dignity and worth. God created us to be bound up with one another. Adam and Eve were “bone of bone and flesh of flesh,” intricately connected to one another for better or for worse. Humanity was created to be free. Although we are radically free, there is responsibility in said freedom. The freedom we have is for something. It is for creation, for God, and for others. Freedom for is not power over something or someone. It is freedom that is oriented toward the flourishing of the earth, of one another, and for receiving God within our lives. To be made in the image of God is to participate in God’s freedom within what is given to us. The freedom for one another causes us to be dependent upon one another.

As a queer, Black woman, belonging is something that I have always craved. I have always strived to be “enough” and have tried to contort myself to fit into the boxes that society has made for me. Rather than try to find a box that can encompass my identity, I have found that I need to get rid of the boxes entirely. I was not created to fit into a box or conform to societal standards. I was fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God tasked to bring Christ’s kin-dom here on earth. I am different. And my difference matters, and makes me unique. I am a person who values community above all else and strives to create inclusive and affirming communities where individual flourishing can be realized. When thinking about freedom and liberation, I often love to ask others the following question: “Who would you be if you were allowed to flourish in all the desires of your heart?”

The answer to that question is at the heart of liberation. The answer to that question is the gateway to figuring out how we all can become radically free. Let’s get free together.

You make our collective work possible by your witness for justice every day in your church, community, and Annual Conference. MFSA does not receive any financial support from the United Methodist Church's giving channels. 100% of our budget is funded through your membership dues and your generosity in giving.

A Florida native, Grace Okerson is a first year Master of Divinity Student studying at Candler School of Theology @ Emory in Atlanta, Georgia. She is pursuing a concentration in Chaplaincy with the hope of going into hospital and/or hospice chaplaincy. She wants to journey with people through their grief and in their points of crisis, putting her own gifts, talents, and lived experience of grief to use.

Equipped with a Master of Arts in Public Ministry from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Grace’s passions surround dismantling white supremacy and prison abolition. Grace graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Science with minors in Diversity and Social Inequality, Women and Gender Studies, and Journalism Studies from the University of Central Florida.

From 2017-2019, Grace then served as Global Mission Fellow with the General Board of Global Ministries as the Lunch & Volunteer Coordinator at the NOAH Project, an agency tackling issues around homeless in downtown Detroit, MI.

Grace currently works with McCormick Theological Seminary’s Solidarity Building Initiative as the Special Projects Coordinator & Content Curator. Through a praxis of curious- learning, innovative-action, and active-reflection, Grace has imagined into existence life-giving solutions and collaborative partnerships towards justice-making and solidarity-building with those who have been marginalized by hyper incarceration.

Grace is a certified candidate for ordained ministry in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church and plans to continue her ministry as a deacon. When she is not working or in school, you can find Grace exploring the city and traveling the globe. Grace enjoys walks, reading, writing, and taking naps on the beach.