Food for the Soul | January 20, 2021
1/20/2021
Dear Friends,
Here we are again, in the middle of the first month of 2021. I hope you all had a good start and a chance to get some rest. As I am writing this we are still awaiting the presidential transition. By the time you read it tomorrow the inauguration will be history. Again we are in a liminal space, an in-between time, and it is hard to know what to say. It seems to me we are all full of anxiety over how the next twenty four hours are going to pan out. It feels like a battle between light and darkness. Let us try to keep up our hope that everything shall be well, as the Gospel of John tells us “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” ‘It takes a special kind of wisdom to be comfortable with darkness or Not Knowing, not knowing how the inauguration will turn out, not being able to make sense of the pandemic, nor the ongoing social upheavals. A commitment to unknowing can provide surprising guidance and inspiration that engender new solutions and possibilities.’ (Paraphrased from Radical Regeneration: Birthing the New Human in the Age of Extinction, by Carolyn Baker and Andrew Harvey.) It is akin to letting go and placing everything in the hands of God who continuously provides us with everything we need.
PRAYER
O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to your merciful care, that being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
(BCP p. 820)
PRACTICE
Keep on breathing. Breath is life, breath is Spirit. It is what keeps us going in all circumstances.
POEM
In the wake of MLK’s day:
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
- Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)