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| The Rev. Dr. Deb Mullen |
“What we know and believe at JCSTS is tonight is an opportunity for connection,” said Cheryl Scales, the seminary’s strategist and marketing coordinator. “For me, the word for today is ‘persevere,’ because I must.”
The 30 or so attendees broke into small groups to discuss:
- What is your armor in this season?
- What tools are you using?
- What tools are you missing? What tools are needed for such a time as this?
One participant said she’s using joy and faith as armor, and the tool she’s seeking is hope. “The first time around, I showed up at every protest there was with my full self,” this participant said. “I don’t know if I have it in me again.”
“I’m leaning on God’s peace. Even though we may not see it, God is working,” said another. “It gives me hope to know I am not by myself.” For this participant, the most important question is, “What is God trying to show us through this? You cannot overcome love. When I communicate in love, the devil doesn’t know what to do.”
A third says she puts on “the armor of curiosity” and “tries to take off judgment.”
“I think I need to grow more courage,” this participant said. “Those of us who are not necessarily activists but are active need to not assume someone else is doing it.”
The Rev. Dr. Deb Mullen, principal program associate at JCSTS, said we can indeed “do two things at the same time.” A pause such as the one offered by the Exhale gathering “is opening space to be able to take in the fullness of what the Spirit is calling for, then figure out the way the Spirit is leading,” Mullen said.
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| The Rev. Paul Roberts |
Mullen thanked her for naming her fear in the face of political upheaval. “It is not wise not to pay attention to that,” Mullen said. “We have been so conditioned in our privileged society that we believe all we need is ourselves, our thoughts and our resources.”
When the entire group reformed, JCSTS’s president, the Rev. Paul Roberts, said he’s grateful for “your energy, your vulnerability, your deep passion in the pursuit of justice and your understanding of the intersectionality of faith and justice.”
He read aloud Jeremiah 29:1–4, the prophet’s challenging letter to the exiles in Babylon. “It’s an amazing, troubling passage,” Roberts said. “Somewhere in there I hear an implication to go with the flow, to get on board, and I find that really disturbing. At the same time, I resonate with what it must have felt like for those Israelites to be in exile. I have felt like an exile in the country of my own residence, and many of you do, too.”
The ”word from the Lord all those years ago was to plant gardens, build houses, and grow and eat the food that you grow,” Roberts said. “‘Seek the welfare of the city’ suggests to me that it’s really important, even in these complex times, to engage, to be in community, to live as abundantly as we can, because when we seek human flourishing, we all flourish.”
“That is not to say we should not resist,” Roberts said. “It is to say that in seeking the flourishing of the city, the search, the passion, the commitment to flourishing is, in its own way, an act of resistance.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)
Let us join in prayer for:
- Hannah Green, Assistant Trust Officer, Presbyterian Foundation
- Ken Green, Church Consultant, Chicago, IL, Board of Pensions
Let us pray:
God of all, it is our greatest joy to give you thanks and praise. Open our hearts to the movement of your Spirit through all the landscapes of our lives. Guide us to be your hands and feet as we faithfully serve in a world of need. Amen.
