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Once upon a time
I rejected the concept of surrender
without hesitation or investigation Would not even risk
thinking it (surrender, indeed!)

and yet…

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Tonight we stood together around candles that marked the spot where his body was found this morning.  Tonight we poured out our stories and our songs, our prayers and our tears. Tonight we reminded each other that we are loved and loving, that our lives have value and are valued by each other.   Tonight we said good-bye to a good friend and a committed organizer.

So tomorrow, when you read in the paper or hear in the news that another black teenage boy was found shot to death in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, stop. Please stop and send love to his family, to his friends, to the community that cared for him, cares for him still.

Please stop and let your heart be broken, broken open at least a little bit, with compassion for a child who was loved, will always be loved, and for those who love him. Mark the passing of a dear soul light who shined brightly in this world and made it a better place.

If you pray, pray for us, pray with us.
Grieve with us. Mourn with us.

And then – organize.

Organize with us to heal this world, to change it into a place where 15 year olds are not killed by guns — are not killed at all. Make George proud.

This morning
Sitting with the grief of more painful news
I pick up my pen
And begin moving at the speed of gratitude
For a community that holds each other
in sorrow and in rage
For the light that wakes us and nourishes creation
For the dark that heals us and rests the world

Today I commit to moving at the speed of gratitude
And find my heart has grown larger
Love more possible
Grace more abundant
At this speed.

…
Beloveds, may you too find the gift of moving at the speed of gratitude.

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
~Hafiz, 14th century Sufi poet

“It may be that we have lost sight of our mission. Primarily, the church is not for social or political pronouncements, nor for the fashioning and dissemination of erudite philosophical doctrines. It is for the generation of love. The church is the only institution in society so purposed. We strike at the heart of our very purpose for existence when we neglect that major aim.” ~ Albert Ziegler wrote, 20th century Universalist minister

Beloveds, each morning we are asked to take a moral stand on the side of love. May we find the courage and compassion to love like the sun, to generate love in abundance for a world that sorely needs it.

Each time that I facilitate conversations on systemic oppression and solidarity, I am struck anew at how programed we are to defensiveness and denial. Each time, my challenge is to love, simply love. We are not machines, broken and in need of fixing. We are wounded warriors in the struggle of life and we need, each of us, compassionate love to call us to our whole and holy selves.

May we wake each day with the mission to generate love in this world as humbly and faithfully as the sun generates light. May we trust that we can lean on each other for comfort when the struggle is relentless. May we know in the bones of our bones that we are not alone. May this knowledge give us the courage to shine the light of compassion on everyone. No exceptions.

{Editor’s Note: Due to technical difficulties, this post, originally scheduled for August 19th, was delayed – posting now!}

I spent two weeks out of state, mostly away from the internet, TV, and newspapers – enjoying some much needed study leave.  Returning to the news of the world on Thursday, August 14th was, I confess, quite an incredibly jarring experience.

The depth and the breadth of the systemic racism in Ferguson, Missouri revealed both in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager and the assault on the protesters demanding accountability for his murder at the hands of the law, the ongoing deaths in Gaza even in the midst of cease-fires, the President’s announcement that we are reentering Iraq, increasing violent deaths in the Ukraine, Syria, Honduras…  and at home, the second weekend of August was an especially bloody one in New Orleans, as six shootings across the city left five people dead and wounded 11 human beings, including a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a 13 year old…

Dear Ones, today my heart is broken and I am trying to do the faithful work of making sure that it is broken open, to make room for more and more love.

…

In my time away, I finished reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder’s portrait of doctor and anthropologist Paul Farmer. Dr. Farmer is an extraordinary human being who has spent much of his life both among the most profoundly poor people in the world and in the halls of ‘the Brigham’ and Harvard in Boston.   Haiti is where the organization he founded, Partners in Health, did its first work and where it still maintains its flagship project, the hospital called Zanmi Lasante, (Haitian Creole for Partners in Health).

As the book concludes, author Tracy Kidder “notes Farmer’s fondness for a particular phrase: “the long defeat.” At one point he quotes Dr. Farmer:

 “I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory. . . . You know, people from our background — like you, like most Partners In Health-ers, like me — we’re used to being on a victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to do in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.”

Commenting on Kidder’s work, Professor Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College wrote:

 “It seems to me that this philosophy of history, if we may call it that, is the ideal one for anyone who has exceptionally difficult, frustrating, even agonizing, but nevertheless vitally important work to do. For such people, the expectation of victory can be a terrible thing — it can raise hopes in (relatively) good times only to shatter them when the inevitable downturn comes. Conversely, the one who fights the long defeat can be all the more thankful for victories, even small ones, precisely because (as St. Augustine said about ecstatic religious experiences) he or she does not expect them and is prepared to live without them….”

Now I have been recently described as ruthlessly optimistic –and while I’m still not quite sure how I feel about that description — it did highlight for me the need to be explicit about our call to do the work of justice.  Friends, we do not work for justice because we know that we are going to win.  We work for justice because it is the ethical thing to do, the loving thing to do, the merciful, compassionate, and faithful thing to do.

If and when you feel overwhelmed by all the healing that must be done, by the sheer volume of injustice present in any one news cycle – I invite you to breathe in and breathe out.  Remember that you are not alone. We who have only begun to imagine justice and mercy, let us not give up if we are comfortably devastated and can afford to despair.  Let us be in solidarity with those whom the dominant culture treats as losers, let us join in the fighting the long defeat with love, compassion, courage and peace that passes understanding.

Together we bend the long arc of the universe toward justice that we may not live to see, but which we must struggle for because it is the faithful thing to do.

{PS – There is a gathering in New Orleans planned for September 26-28, 2014 for those wanting to live missional, justice-making lives and who are looking for a beloved community to connect with on the journey.  Learn more here https://www.facebook.com/LifeOnFireTribe and here http://lifeonfirenola2014.wordpress.com/ }