Blogs

Reflections of the ministers and senior staff.

Blogs

Reflections of the ministers and senior staff.
2 minutes reading time (349 words)

Learning What the Work Is

pouring-water

I think our notions of what counts as radical have changed over time. Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension—all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles. That wasn’t the case before. And I think that now we’re thinking deeply about the connection between interior life and what happens in the social world.

~ Angela Davis

This week has brought back the old exhaustion of last spring when the world seemed to be coming apart. The moments have returned when I am rendered speechless, throat full, and eyes pooling with tears at senseless Black death. Outraged, full of sorrow. Forcing myself to not turn away but to be fully present so that I shall continue to know what is needed of me. What the work is.

I hope you are training yourself to be fully present to all of this as well. The work is for us together. It is the only way to change anything, to heal what needs healing. And we all need healing.

Pause. Breathe.

We have to imagine the kind of society we want to inhabit. We can’t simply assume that somehow, magically, we’re going to create a new society in which there will be new human beings. No, we have to begin that process of creating the society we want to inhabit right now. ~ Angela Davis

My spiritual practices hold me together during times like these. Watering my spirit, nourishing my soul, helping me to stay malleable, resilient, imagining, holding hope, and fueling me with the energy to do the work set before me, moving another step in this moment and in the next.

Practice is for times like these. Our inner practices sustain us, allowing us to engage in an ongoing way the work of creating the outer world we imagine. That one for the highest good of All where the arc of the universe is bending towards justice. And there is no senseless Black death. No senseless death at all.

Palms together,
Rev. Jacqueline

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Pouring Water image via Kamoteus on Creative Commons

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