Strategically Undervalued, A Prayer

Via: farmerricshi I tried a new phrase in a meeting today. Instead of “underserved,” “underprivileged” “historically marginalized,” 

Try Strategically undervalued.”

I like it because it emphasizes the purposefulness of racism(rather that the historically” which gives a kind of happenstance energy) and uplifts the community, rather than emphasizing the marginalization. 

God
Almighty
in
Heaven

This is
definitely a
“Do not put your
trust in princes
powers
or principalities”
week

as the value of
actual human
beings
was strategically
cleverly
humorously
manically
and with
immediate
deniability

undervalued

The weariness of
political clamor
falls away some

God
you understand
that this is
systematic
dehumanization

Bad theology
kills

And that

for us

Christians
imago
dei
is essential
for faith

We
carry God

And that
God contains
multitudes

God is community
To deny
the complexity
of humanity

To make
the human
experience
one

is to
lose
faith

God
I pray for
humanity


re-human-ing
I pray for
peace

I carry
hope
that we
will find
flashes
of true community

Walk with us
in this time of
anger and fear
we pray.
Amen

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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