Protest Beatitudes

Blessed* are the protestors
They hold the foretaste Justice on their tongue
It tastes like Community

Blessed are the arrested
They are the forerunners of Liberation
For they know that the root of Liberation is the same as Salvation: Soteria

Blessed are the kidnapped, the human trafficked, the aching families separated
The are tears running down our faces

Blessed are the gassed, the rubber bulleted the trampled
They are voice of the muted, the embodiment of empathy, the spirit of our movement

Blessed are artists, the youth, the elders with wisdom, the marginalized with unique perspectives
They are are prophets giving us ears to hear and hearts to understand

Blessed are the newest among the fold, the awkward, the uncomfortable and uncertain
They are the students, reminding us that there is always more to learn

Blessed are the disparate opinions: the go faster and go slow, the people of faith and the atheists, the Black, Brown and White and all to privileged.
We are the movement, figuring out how to work together, imagining a better system than the one that exists now, may it be so.

*In Aramaic (the native tongue of Jesus) Blessings Baruach is not a passive word, but a word to activate you. You are not blessed. You are gifted with things so you can work with them and use them because you are called to them. Therefore let us be blessed and bless one another in our works. –according to Elias Chacour former ArchBishop of Jerusalem in the Eastern Orthodox Church

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

A poster of a yellow chicken and a yellow background. There are black speech bubbles all around the chickens head. Each bubble had swords in them handwritten in white. Words are from bottom left around head to the right, each bubble word is in quotes. “Ha” “ha” “ha” “a joke” “taco” “man baby” “no creepy rambling losers” “no kings” “June14” and “weak ass.” Written in darker yellow on each side of the chicken “we have” “power” above the yellow words are 2 black lightning bolts. Below the yellow words are “more info bookings.org” and “fight for democracy” written in black. Artwork by Martha Rich (copyright 2025)

No Kings Graphic by MarathRic63 Chicken in Yellow “We Have Power” Moreinfo Nokings.org Taco, A Joke, Power, Fight for Democracy, No Kings,

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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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