4th of July

God,
Here we are again,
Celebrating “Freedom” or whatever

But Black Lives still don’t matter
LGBTQIA rights are worse
Women subjugated
Children hunger and forgotten
Hate crimes up and rising

And I just Can’t,
Free to do what?
What are we celebrating?
I hate how Americans have turned
Freedom into an equivalency for Selfishness

And we all know that this has been a problem
For a while.
But I had some hope in the days of Black Lives Matter
and when Covid efforts were new
That we might actually learn some things.

But we are still a country
That throws more money at war and police
Then schools and social efforts and equality.

Some countries have Kings
We have Capitalism, Liberty, Christianity and White Supremacy
We all are living with the results of this.

So here’s my prayer:
for human dignity,
the right to belong
the right to eat good food, shelter and be clothed
the right to water, education and clean air
the freedom to be oneself.
The right to pray and to refrain from praying
I hope everyone gets a moment to just be today.

And maybe tomorrow, we will work for each other’s freedom’s
Instead of our own.

Please Jesus, show us the way.
Amen.

Feel free to use/share/Adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Supreme Justice? A Prayer

God,

You and I

know that I am uncomfortable

pledging allegiance to a flag–

because that flag’s justice

is not your justice.

Justice that flows like waters

is not promised in the flag

Supreme Justice–where mainly white men

reign like kings of the day;

welp God, I remember

all your warnings about kings,

and that you sent

ahem,

let’s say a different kind of judges

heroes who rebalanced the books

against the powers that be–

God we are the one

who are to empower the judges

against the Supreme Justices

Restoring Personhood, Privacy, Sexuality, Climate, Native Rights

Obliterating our hunger for Death Cults.

God, I do not want liberty and justice for all

because those human ideals cannot come close to

justice flowing down like water,

and righteousness like an everflowing stream

refresh our thirst for that which is good,

remind us to listen to those in the margins,

who still remember what justice tastes like.

Because surely it tastes like communion,

and the Kin(g)dom

and Love;

If only we can remember,

Whet our appetite for justice, I pray.

Amen.

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

#Relentless #oppress #Slatespeak

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

the most basic and essential of prayers for all peoples

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O how it hurts me that Christianity is used for a tool of oppression. In the grand pantheon of ways to be Christian, I figure you and God are working it out.

Unless you are using the Gospel to preach hate or oppress someone, because that right there people, is heresy. Heresy is using the Gospel for the opposite of its purpose.

Hate instead of love and Oppression instead of freedom are pretty much it.

But it hurts, because I benefit from oppression. I’m white and I have to deal with my whiteness. I’m cis-hetereo and I have to deal everyday with the fact that my so-called normalcy gives me an advantage.

And Jesus isn’t about the normal people. The more we normalize Christianity, the more we make it about power. In a slatespeak discussion a couple of weeks ago, my colleagues mused that Imperialism is when we are mistakenly convinced that God only talks to those in power.

Heresy, again I cry heresy.

I cry heresy to the core of my soul, but Christianity has been entrenched and tied to Power forever. Only Christ can save it. Only Christ can save us.

Because, we are the nation “trumpeting our righteousness”, even as we sin. We only fast “to quarrel and fight”

So this is the FAST that I choose

to loose the bonds of injustice–against the Trans, Muslim, Autistic, Lesbian & Gay, Deaf, Jewish, Sikh,  Genderqueer, Blind, People of Color, Mentally Ill, Asexual, the poor and the children.

To undo the thongs of the yoke of the overworked, the under appreciated, the homeless, the victims of violence, the helpless, the depressed, the lonesome

To Let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke.

The way to do this is to share my bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into my own house and cover the naked.

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

the most basic and essential of prayers for all peoples

To somehow empower without enabling, to be gracious in an unjust world and to magnify those voices that society tries to erase, ignore or unnamed.

For then the light shall break forth like the daw, and healing shall spring up quickly.

Heal us, break us our from our own heresies, entrench us instead in love.

 

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+58

 

holy-night

“Where true inner freedom is, there God is. And where God is, there we want to be…When we meet a truly free person there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom.”

Henri Nouwen

We have been practicing breath prayer of “Freedom, in Christ” some thoughts for that…

hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic (hermit) tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm (Ancient Greek: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo, “to keep stillness” stillness, rest, quiet, silence). The prayer is particularly esteemed by the spiritual fathers of this tradition (see Philokalia) as a method of opening up the heart (kardia) and bringing about the Prayer of the Heart (Καρδιακή Προσευχή). The Prayer of The Heart is considered to be the Unceasing Prayer that the apostle Paul advocates in the New Testament. St. Theophan the Recluse regarded the Jesus Prayer stronger than all other prayers by virtue of the power of the Holy Name of Jesus.