Dear Friends,
As a pastor I know that one of the most important aspects of ministry is to offer hope. I must confess that sometimes when I wake in the morning, see the light of dawn breaking through my window, hear the first birds greeting the sun, feel cold water slushing my face as I complete my ablutions, run downstairs to take the dog out, and wait for the aroma of coffee brewing that I forget to hope. You’d think with all those sensory blessings hope would come naturally and eagerly, but it doesn’t.
I blog each week with an offering of hope that sometimes I have to dive deep to find. Because here’s the truth: it’s the end of the world as we know it. As I wrote that last sentence I realized that this is the hope I can offer. It is terrifying and promising. We stand on a precipice: we will either descend into a scruffy form of nazism in which the state will institutionalize the elimination of marginalized people or we will harness our power to make change.
From now until the election I will write to you each week. Letters of encouragement. Letters filled with rage. Letters offering hope. But be sure of this, this election is the most important election of our lives. White people once saw racism ‘through a glass darkly’. Men once saw sexism, heterosexuals saw homosexism, citizens saw immigrants – all through a glass darkly. If our eyes are not opened now. If we cannot see the dehumanization of others. If we close our eyes to the violence perpetrated on black bodies through out our history. If we allow ourselves to be blind to those truths, then we will not be a part of bringing about necessary, long-overdue change. Even worse, we will be allowing evil to persist.
What hope can I offer you today? If we dare to open our eyes and open our hearts, then we have the hope of a new dawn, a new reality that we must do everything in our power to usher in. The hope of hearing the other, even if the reality they speak is different from our own. The hope when we offer our hearts and our bodies to that cry for justice that is truly sacred. The hope the comes when we both trust and live into knowing that love is greater than hate.
It’s the end of the world as we know it. Thanks be to Godde.
Connie