7/7/2022
7/7/2022
Dear Friends in Christ,
Last Tuesday evening a small group of us gathered on zoom for a service of lament and healing following the overturning of Roe V Wade by the supreme court last month. As part of the service, we shared our fear, grief, anger, and hope as we sought comfort and strength from our faith in God through prayer, music and scripture. During that service I was reminded of a quote I discovered back in 2020 after the shooting of George Floyd, when the world was turned upside down by the pandemic and the realization that our national narrative still supported ongoing systemic violence and oppression of people of color and other marginalize groups. Dr. Estés is a first-generation American, a prolific writer and Jungian psychoanalyst and post trauma specialist. The quote was: “My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times…” the title of an article/awaken.com/2017/01/dr-clarissa-pinkola-estes-we-were-made-for-these-times/ she wrote in January 2017 for people, “deeply and properly bewildered… concerned about the state of affairs in our world now.” She went on, “Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.”
Dr. Estés urges her readers to “not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.”
More than five years later our world feels just as broken and divided as it did back then, maybe more so. Despite this fact we should not lose heart. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, we were made for these times. We have promised with God’s help to persevere in resisting evil, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself; to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Our faith is the means by which we have been learning, practicing, training for this exact moment. Our faith community provides the strength and support to engage. Jesus did not come for the whole and the healthy; he did not minister to the rich and the powerful. Jesus came for a world that was fallen and broken. Not to fix the world but to offered hope and encouragement to those oppressed and marginalized by the powers and principalities of the world.
If it feels like there is more injustice and more brokenness in our world every day this is not a reason to give up or lose hope, it is an opportunity to live more fully into our baptismal promises and follow in our Savior’s footsteps. It may feel overwhelming and impossible, but as Dr. Estes says, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.”
As Jesus tells the lawyer in this Sunday’s Gospel, Go and do likewise.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jane+ For the complete article please click here