July 8, 2020: This Moment in Time.
This very moment is fraught.
Fraught is a word from Middle English with the same root as freight. It means weighed down, loaded, filled with, as a boat or ship is when filled with freight.
This moment is heavy with anxiety, fear, rage, grief, hope, and love. For that reason alone, it is a time to stay awake, to pay attention, to not allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of complacency.
Pay attention.
Don’t just listen to the voices of doom and despair. Limit your time on social media and watching news and see whether you feel better or worse. Instead, pay attention to the sounds around you, sensations of pleasure and discomfort, the taste of your food, the miracle of your breath. I’m not suggesting you do this 24/7, but perhaps for a few minutes each day, as an experiment. See if your mood shifts. See how you feel.
I love hearing from you, so let me know!
I will be on leave for the rest of this month so that I can be ready to return in August. Whether I return in body or in spirit remains to be seen! But rest assured I’m not going anywhere. When I get back, we will go ahead with the community book read, and I will post virtual office hours. While on leave, I will be paying attention, and trying to understand how I can best serve GNUUC this coming year. I welcome your input. Also, know that I can come back from leave in the case of emergency. Just leave me a text, e-mail, or message.
Are there things you need that you’d like me to do?
Some of my time since mid-March has been spent establishing relationships with interfaith clergy and laity in Nashville that I hope we can continue together. The spirit of cooperation and determination to work together is strong in these days.
It’s one of many blessings that has emerged.
Last night, I was asked to offer a benediction at a NOAH-sponsored school board candidate forum for District 9. By listening to the questions and the NOAH panelists, I learned so much about this city, its people, and its past. I’ve been remembering how important David Halberstam’s book The Children was to me years ago. The history of Nashville with racism and Civil Rights is fraught as well. Fraught need not be all bad. A moment can be both fraught with trepidation and with promise. The promise is what keeps me going, and I hope it sustains you as well.
Here’s the prayer:
Spirit of Love
Spirit of Hope,
We know that the young are our greatest treasure, and our most urgent priority.
We have seen their resilience, their courage, their unity and their determination.
Our task is not so much to mold them as to empower them.
Let us set about that task with humility. The future will be theirs, but it is up to us to ensure there is a future, and to prepare them.
They are telling us, even in these hours of confusion and frustration, that they do know a way. The way is knowledge. The way is cooperation. The way is peace.
As the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”
Jesus was called “teacher”. Moses was a leader. Mohammed was a prophet.
As it was in the Nashville in 1960 when Diane Nash, Jim Bevel, and John Lewis, students and followers of Rev. James Lawson, walked through fear and intimidation to stage those early lunch-counter sit-ins, so it is today, sixty years later. A child shall lead them, the Scripture says, and so in our choices we should not only teach but learn from our youth. We should listen and let them lead us when the time is right.
May Nashville once again be a place that is remembered for what we have done for the least of these.
May we turn toward, not away from our children.
For today, with so much at stake in this world, it is our obligation to serve them.
May it be so.
See you in August!
Cynthia
