Words from the World

WEEK 7

Monday

Stewardship

“The protest is a ritual”: How faith found a place in Palestine solidarity encampments
Religion News Service, June 13, 2024 by Chloë-Arizona Fodor

Over the past nine months, student-led Palestine solidarity encampments popped up at universities across the country. For many students, multi-religious programming at the encampments became unexpected sites for religious connection.

At the University of Rochester’s Palestine solidarity encampment, in the quiet of a spring sunset, a large circle of university staff, faculty and students focused on two professors leading a ritual in English and Hebrew. As prayers were said and small cups of grape juice were passed around, one of the celebrants jokingly assured the Christians in the circle, “This is grape juice, just grape juice, it’s not transforming into anything. There’s no magic happening.”

As a braided candle was lit, the other professor walked around the circle with spices, holding them out to each person to smell, part of an ancient ceremony marking the end of Shabbat called the Havdalah. …

Over the past nine months, student-led protests at universities across the country became unexpected sites for religious connection for students of often drastically different faiths — and even among a healthy share of those of no faith at all. …

The encampment [at Harvard University in April] rapidly became an alternative spiritual hub, with Friday Jum’ah prayers, Shabbats and Eucharist services interspersed with spontaneous rituals, including recitals of the Jewish mourner’s kaddish and Muslim students offering to apply henna for the North African Jewish ritual of Mimouna. Buddhist monks were on hand to lead guided meditation sessions.

A sign held aloft at one protest read, “This protest is a ritual.”

Tuesday

Justice

Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.

By Bryan Stevenson from his book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Stevenson is a lawyer, social justice activist, and the founder/executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, defending the lives of those on death row in Alabama. In 2018 he opened the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, known as the National Lynching Memorial. His story is told in the movie, “Just Mercy.” https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X

Wednesday

Discernment

A Gift by Denise Levertov

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

Thursday

Reconcililation

Civil rights leader James Lawson, who learned from Gandhi, used nonviolent resistance and the ‘power of love’ to challenge injustice

Lawson learned in India how to resist racism and subsequently trained his students on the systematic use of nonviolence to fight injustice.

Religion News Service, June 13, 2024
By Anthony Siracusa

Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., who died on June 9, 2024, at the age of 95, was a Methodist minister and a powerful advocate of nonviolence during the Civil Rights Movement. Lawson is best known for piloting two crucial civil rights campaigns – one in Nashville in 1960 and the other in Memphis in 1968.

In Nashville, Lawson trained students in the systematic use of nonviolent pressure. Interracial teams of students would sit at local lunch counters reserved for white people to defy segregation laws. Most importantly, he prepared them to be beaten or arrested. Following the example of Mahatma Gandhi, who used nonviolent resistance to challenge the British occupation of India, students engaged in collective nonviolent direct action. When the first wave of students were beaten or arrested, another wave of students flowed in behind them to take their places.

Hundreds were arrested or beaten before their actions led Nashville Mayor Ben West to publicly declare segregation immoral – a signal to downtown business owners it was time to end the policy of racial segregation in Nashville. …

Lawson and students across the nation used nonviolent noncooperation to end legalized racial segregation in the United States. He taught his students they must be willing to fight and die for the cause of human freedom and justice, but that they shall not kill.

From Religion News Service, June 13, 2024 by Anthony Siracusa. Copyright © 2024 RNS. https://religionnews.com/2024/06/13/rev-james-lawson-who-learned-from-gandhi-used-the-power-of-love-to-challenge-injustice/

Friday

Obedience

An African Canticle

All you big things, bless the Lord. / Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria, / The Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plain, // Fat baobabs and shady mango trees, / All eucalyptus and tamarind trees, / Bless the Lord. / Praise and extol Him for ever and ever. // All you tiny things, bless the Lord. / Busy black ants and hopping fleas, / Wriggling tadpoles and mosquito larvae, / Flying locusts and water drops, / Pollen dust and tsetse flies, / Millet seeds and dried dagaa, / Bless the Lord. / Praise and extol Him for ever and ever.

Saturday

Humility

“On Humility”
By Saint Teresa of Calcutta

These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one’s self. To mind one’s own business. Not to want to manage other people’s affairs. … To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one’s dignity. To choose always the hardest.