Dear Siblings, 

Every now and then, I don’t quite know what to write for the week. And that’s mostly because so much has happened over the past few days. I won’t recall all of those things in this note. But I will say that I am in a sort of mourning. Mourning for the world as it is, because I know how different it could all be. I am thinking most urgent about the rapid changes in the political representation of Black Americans. Yesterday afternoon, Tennessee split the city of Memphis, where I lived for college, into three separate congressional districts. Regardless of partisan positions, the result is a diluted voice for Black Tennesseans.

Unfortunately, this same scene is being played out in South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana too. Yes, I am mourning the reality that it seems this reconstructed country is turning away from the fulfillment of one its most grand ideas and still incomplete experiments: that in this new world, out of the ashes of the peculiar institution that was race-based slavery and civil war, a multi-racial democracy could rise and thrive. Yes, I am in mourning over our shrinking away from the possibility of such a vision. 

These words, shared by Dr. Terrence Johnson, the new Dean of Candler School of Theology, have sat in my head:

Mighty causes are calling us– the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty– all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices and death. Mercifully grant us, O God, the spirit of Esther, that we say: I will go unt0 the King and I perish, I perish. Amen. – Prayers for Dark People (1980)

In a rather abrupt turn from the above, this Sunday is also Mother’s Day. This is a day that is filled with joy and for many people also sadness. And so, my prayer for you this weekend is that you receive what you need for this occasion. If you need the joy and celebration, the breakfast in bed, and handmade cards or phone calls, I pray you get all of that and more. But if what you need is a moment to visit a graveside, or to look at an old picture, or play an old voicemail, then I hope that you can make time for that too. If you’re someone who doesn’t quite know how to define your relationship to the person who birthed you, and would like for this day to simply not exist, then I hope that Sunday is simply Sunday. I pray that you receive what you need to receive on Mother’s Day. 

On Sunday, we’ll be open to an encounter with the Holy Spirit and sit with John’s Gospel. I hope to see you in worship, on-site or online! 

Thomas