Instructions for the New Year

Beloveds, as we prepare for the new year, I invite you to take a deep breath in and hold it for a moment and let it out.  Think back to this past year, to your lived experience and the stories you absorbed.  Remember the grief and the joy, the rage and the resistance.

Remember that some people were more outraged at having their shopping experience interrupted than they were at the death of a black child at the hands of police.  Remember that a Black woman climbed to the top of a flagpole and removed a symbol of white supremacy that had flown over the governmental seat of power in South Carolina.  Remember that a white man wealthy with money he did not earn stirred hate and violence among poor whites to fight his economic elite battle for him against immigrants and people of color.  Remember that we are all in this together and what we say and do MATTERS.

In 2016, you are invited, in the wise words of Lena Gardner of Black Lives Matter MPLS and the Church of the Larger Fellowship, “Get with love, get in the mess, or get out of our way.”  A new way of being together is necessary.  History shows us that there are no bystanders in struggle between good and evil.  And, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”  Let us search our hearts and get in (or stay in) the movement for love and respect for all beings.

Blessings of courage and faith and compassion to all of us in 2016.