God,
Isn’t it funny
How every Autumn–
I get so exhausted
With all of the Injustice in the World
I hit a wall of Stuckness
And it compounds Everything!
And then I remember
that I have SAD
and so some of my weariness
is as natural as the seasons–
And I’m grateful to remember
That I’ll have the energy
to fight for justice and righteousness
again
Amazing what Sabbath
and Seasons
Can do for a woman
Isn’t it God?
God,
I long for justice
I ache for it so much
that when I go to bed at night
I am convinced that it whispers to me
In a language too complicated for human ears.
And when I wake up and hear
of courts
and punishments
and other things
My soul sits confused
unable to responds to these paltry efforts.
I want justice that feeds the hungry,
frees the prisoner
and yes breaks the teeth of my enemy–but
in such a way that I am too busy partying to notice.
Jesus, did every meal with you taste like justice
or hope
comfort and freedom?
Or was it enough to just sit with you?
Holy Spirit, I find that this longing for justice is really something.
It is not the gift I asked for, and yet it was given to me–unasked
and so here I am
Not waiting for justice, Because we all know, justice does not allow one to wait.
But still,
Walking,
Running,
Resting
towards justice, because I do not know any other way to be.
And that’s why I talk, yell and cry to you God.
It’s this justice hole in my soul.
You poke it and prod it with me, like the great physician you are.
And say, where does it hurt?
And confirm.
Yes.
Yes, We should work on that.
Here we go again God.
Amen.
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God, can we talk?
You and I know
that
Abortion is healthcare
America doesn’t believe in healthcare
We ignore it
stop it,
charge ludicrous amounts for it
We create “Companies” and give them authority to have
“feelings” about it
“We feel like you don’t need that medication”
Ha, right
And, then, finally make it illegal
America doesn’t do healthcare
It’s that simple
and that hard
So I guess we need to start at the very beginning
What is healthcare God?
Because I don’t think we’ve even started, yet
Help us
Care
About
Health
Please.
Or to Care
Help us.
Selah
Amen.
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This is a prayer for the church government people
NOTE: not for the people who try to make the government into the CHURCH (that is a imprecation that I will save for another day)
This is a prayer for the church government people
A prayer for those who work or even spend their precious vacation time in often windowless rooms, or staring at screens to discern the Holy Spirit–
Truly God, when human beings agree with one another, it is a miracle,
Alleluia.
And when we disagree,
When definitions, get called into question,
when the same white man stands up yet again, to say that he feels left out
Lord, have mercy on the church, and all those who patiently listen
And bless all the tech gurus, the behind the scenes organizers, the administrators who make it happen.
God bless those in the church who are wonky, and those who will never be, but have taken the time to be a part of this process.
And God bless all those who have always been outnumbered, or at least outshouted in the spaces: the People of Color, the LGBTQIA siblings, the young, the otherwise disenfranchised.
Jesus I know you hear them the most, and that always, always, the more we can listen to the marginalized, the better the church is,
because the church was never meant to be a hegemony (or perhaps even rules by Rogers Rule of Order)
God bless those who stand their ground;
who don’t get muddled by mis-founded accusations,
the ignored, forgotten, or glossed over
after hours of sweat, work, and love have been put into this church government thing.
May there be naps, chocolate and hugs in their future.
God bless the church, which is not the governances,
but needs government, because we are only human and know no other way.
Bless our gatherings,
keep us safe.
Help us to listen better, each and every time,
Expand our inclusion and compassion,
flip the tables that need to be flip,
scatter the money across the floor if we need to;
and remind us to love one another as we go we pray.
Amen.
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God
How stupid are humans
That we have to claim
Christians are oppressed
To get attention
Is it bc we know
Your the God of the oppressed?
Oh Jesus
Who weeps
Who wants to protect
The broken under your wings
Tell the Pharaohs,
Street Corner Prayers,
Herods & Warmongers
To shut up
(a word we gloss
Differently in the Bible)
And if they don’t listen
Shut them up
Anyway
Do your thing God
For the oppressed,
Enslaved, orphaned,
Widowed
Care for the children.
Do your Prince of Peace thing
Because surely
That is the way
To help the oppressed
And we Christians,
We will muddle along
Definitely not oppressed
And hopefully
Helping the oppressed
Too
Lead the way Prince of Peace.
Lead the way.
Amen!
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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.
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God,
Maybe I’ll never take in
the shock of a country betraying my trust over and over again
first with 9/11
then the war in Iraq,
then college debt and a recession–
then motherhood unsupported, votes that don’t count,
adulthood mocked as I forced my way into the world hustling all of my hobbies into jobs
Being told that I didn’t care enough to make it in the world, and that’s why
I couldn’t have an emergency found, save for retirement, have security of house, babysitting and daycare for my children, living paycheck to paycheck,
after years of climate change, shaky policies and politics, no family leave, switching to paper straws, buying thrift clothes, and being told every single decision is my responsibility and fault
–the millennials are clearly to blame for it all
And knowing my family is ironically more financially secure now than we ever been and yet
now we are betrayed again,
And the world is on fire with pandemics and justice broken with Jan 6 and the Constitution being brought to its knees with two weeks of stacked “interpretations”
Maybe its ok that I cannot take in that the Supreme Court Justices have betrayed me yet again
That the greater church has no energy anymore
That there is no institution to fall back upon–
There is only faith and friends, and another letter to you God,
to say hey God,
I’m still here.
I still love you,
and I still believe that justice is worth it.
Babies need to be wanted,
Miranda rights are important,
Prayer should be taught by professionals
Guns are stupid, dangerous and don’t have rights
Schooling is more important than what we give it, and segregated schools through religiosity is trash
and I think we humans can do better than what we are doing now–
and I do know that sometimes there is no resurrection without death.
And I’m ok with that.
Help me God. Because trust is broken,
but I’m still here, and so are you.
Help me face today, and tomorrow,
because the path is not clear,
and we need to learn how to work together
with the people who know how to do the work already.
Thanks God.
Amen.
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Content Warning: Abortion
On June 25th, 2022
The Supreme Court of the USA
Decided things, for women;
Abortion could be made illegal,
by any state that wished it.
***
It was then the stories spilled out
Unstoppered from the soul;
They were told because
someone had to hear them,
We were like Hagar,
naming the truth of the anguish
Telling the tales that some will deny
after we screamed by a the tree
from rage and anguish and lament.
***
The stories, bled out under the tree,
as we hugged one another;
Of illegal abortions at college,
When the friend almost bled out…
and these stories are not as my youngest says
from “Ancient times”–
of the sister whose ectopic pregnancy;
after she finally convinced the dr that she was indeed pregnant,
…that this life saving surgery that was administered mere weeks ago
was as of THIS moment illegal in some states.
Of the horrific and hard late term abortions,
that were tragic and still open wounds.
Of abortions that eased and affirmed lives,
because the individual had no means
to care for a a child at that moment.
Of friends and sisters and trans individuals who died
from lack of proper care.
***
We named how racism will kill so many women now.
Of the horrors of foster care and adoption,
and how that is a different conversation
to convolute with abortion.
Because White Supremacists want to control the wombs of all women, of all childbearing people though they deny they exist.
The grandmothers of our community, recalled the fight as it happened before.
Of moms who wanted to work, but were stuck with children instead.
Of no credit cards, no freedom, no divorce, no control.
***
We raged and we mourned and
like a miracle, we found ourselves by the well—women and childbearing people of all genders
and we were telling stories to you Jesus–
Not our husbands, because we said,
“Today Jesus, I have no husband”
and we said, we have no husband–
and Jesus you answered and said, that’s right.
You are your own self, dignified, in your own right.
Defined not by your husband, or your children,
with rights over your God-created, God-imagined, Godly and beautiful body.
Go and be blessed.
And so we will go, full of pain
And hope
and stories.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
God
I am pretty mad at humans today
and Old White Men
and the powers that be
And the manipulators
Who thought one dollar more
was more important
than getting justice done
and the church
who put off
flipping tables
for another time and place
And I want to rage
and scream
and find the right punishment
for all of my enemies
except I don’t really know who my enemies are
just they they are out there
whispering nonsense about
pro-life and family first and great america
as they grind these things into dust
as they deal death
with additive drugs like “safety” “religion” and “whiteness”
And I feel like I’m going to throw up or pass out,
and my soul hurts with the magnitude of it all.
Is this when you run away into the desert? Jesus?
Or hop a boat into the ocean?
Or feed 5,000 people just for the hell of it?
Or invite yourself over to the tax collector’s house to dinner, just to piss everyone off?
Because at times like these I feel like if I don’t enact justice viscerally, I’m going to implode.
And then I have to remind myself I’m not Jesus, I cannot save the world.
So I beat my chest, scream a tree, write an angsty psalm, cry.
And maybe I retreat for one day instead of forty,
maybe I feed one person instead of 5,000
maybe I invite someone I’ve been meaning to over to dinner instead of a tax collector.
And I remind myself, it all counts.
Because all justice counts,
Because I’m not a Jesus or a superhero,
but at least I can do something,
and I’m not giving up.
Thanks for reminding us not to give up God.
Amen.
Feel free to adapt/use/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Ch 10 Justice
“Justice is different from violence and retributions; it requires complex accounting” p. 122
“Justice doesn’t choose choses dignity is superior. It upholds the dignity of all those involved, no matter whom it offers or what it costs.—there is no liberation without justice.” p. 123
“The freedom of God’s people did not occur in a vacuum. There were consequences. There was truth-telling. And there was a disturbingly costly justice.” p. 124
“Activism is the body of justice” p. 125
Habakkuk” In weariness and frustration, demanded God do something..the Christian story is the tensions between the promise of justice and liberation and the unjust and oppressive patterns in our daily lived experiences. “ p. 128-129
“Assata Shakur ‘Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them’…They are parched and delirious, their memory of themselves tainted. Their only hope is the hear the voices of the marginalized hiding them back to the water—a mercy they will not immediately understand. It is not until they drink from the streams that the prophet Amos calls on to roll down like justice and righteousness that their withering sons regenerate, and they recognize that all this time, the problem was not that they were thirsty; it was that they were were cursed.” p. 129
Land and Justice are the same p. 132, 133 bc we all live here
Ch. 15 Liberation: Summation You deserve more than the despair that stalks your days. You don’t have to make a sound; just let the peace pass through your belly and be what you need it to be. p. 169
No notes, plan to reread
katyandtheword 