From Rev. Kent

Dear Family,
This year, this month, even this very week have brought significant challenges to the well-being of our souls. You are not imagining the anxiety everyone is feeling and, make no mistake, reckless and inhumane policies are imperiling our democratic ideals and practices on a daily basis.
In such circumstances, it can be tempting to tune out. It can be overwhelming to be flooded with fear, outrage, hopelessness, and despair over and over. There is understandable “protest fatigue”, hope attrition, and bodily exhaustion.
Yet, for all of this, people of faith are not without strength. We have been here many times before. As Moses found water in the very rock of stony deserts, so have we too have and will find the living water God yet intends to spread around.
In the struggle against immoral, unjust, and dangerous acts, it may be helpful to remember the lessons taught by our spiritual ancestors:

1. Neither overestimate the power of evil, nor underestimate it. “Complacence is the Devil’s ally” a wise woman once said. Most evil gains momentum because we just do nothing. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that “nothing will work, therefore I will do nothing.” It’s not true. We may not win a play, but we don’t have forfeit the game.
2. Work for the Long Good. The Long Good is the blessing that might take a decade, or two, but includes all. It’s the long arc bending toward justice. Keep eyes up and hearts lifted for Gospel work over the long-haul.
3. Reframe Your Spiritual Intake: Anxiety, stress, resistance takes spiritual energy. Make sure you are being fed and feeding others: soak in the music that heals, spend time surrounded by beauty to remind yourself of the beautiful Good News we hope to spread, and adopt resistance as a spiritual practice, an integrated part of who you are, rather than a separate activity you must fit into your schedule. It’s a question of becoming a long-distance spiritual runner, rather than a divine sprinter. Let all you do praise the Lord and strengthen you for the work set before you.
4. Don’t Equivocate: there are acts that are deliberately cruel, counter to the scriptural record of God’s hopes and actions, and designed to wound the very people Jesus came to save. Don’t get adjusted to the false narrative, so popular today, that every opinion is equally valid. They are not. It is not easy to sort their validity, but it is your sacred obligation to try lest doublespeak and whitewashing tempt us to forget that enslaving others is wrong, ripping children from parents is immoral, and that taking or maintaining power by means of force, coercion, the involvement of foreign spycraft, and without the mandate of a majority of citizens is the beginning of fascism. We don’t have to hate those who appear at first to be the opposition, but we cannot fail to name the evil in the midst of us all.

Baptized by water, we are prepared to be baptized by fire. As political and social challenges grow, our love and compassion and the vision for hope-filled transformation must also increase. In times of such stress, immersion in a beloved community is even more important.
The solidity of helping others in need is the rock upon which our faith has been built and it will not fail. Small acts become mighty kindnesses.
“Justice is what love looks like in public,” said Cornel West.  So, family, love one another and do whatever makes it possible for you to keep loving. I think you’ll agree this is a world that needs a lot of love now. Let us open our hearts, plant our feet, and speak a loving word to hateful world, in Christ’s name.

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