Last week the magazine from our Seattle son’s university showed up in our mailbox. It is always a lovely periodical and I enjoy reading it. It is a combination of alumni news, current activities at the school and a subtle pitch at fundraising. It always seem well balanced and reading it provides me one of those umbilical cord moments mothers need when their children are living far from home. Reading it I somehow feel closer to the life he is creating.
One of the events they were publicizing was an event featuring poet Mary Oliver. Those of you who have read these pages know that I am a hopeless M.O. fan. The event is called ‘The Search for Meaning: Pacific Northwest Spirituality Book Festival.’ Can you hear me drooling?
Reading about the event further I saw that the planners defined the event as ‘attempting to create an annual gathering place for all people of good will to discuss their values, the ways they create meaning in their lives and the dreams they have for a world of greater kindness, peace and justice.’ Going on, the reporter explained that the creation of this event ‘is a good indication of how many of us believe we can have profound differences yet talk and learn from each other, while finding new ways to build a common life for us and our children.’ Something in these words went right to my heart, in a good way. I breathed a deep, calming breath that people would come together around such a wonderful and noble goal. It piqued every cell of hope within me.
Perhaps I was so ready to receive this message because I had earlier been listening to a bit of the debates between some of those who hope to be president. President of a country that was founded on the bold notion that we are a nation of people with profound differences and that is not a weakness, as the debaters implied, but actually our great strength. And the strength of this is in listening,learning and creating ways to build a common life for all children that is founded on kindness, peace and justice in ways none of us in our single mindedness could envision alone.
As I write this, I have just finished worship planning for this Sunday, a day when we will once again remember the work and words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will combine the hopes and dreams of his words, ones we now know so well we sometimes forget to really hear them and the impact they had at the time they were spoken. His message was one that called all of us to embrace the diversity of this nation and all the goodness that might come to birth through it. The scripture for the day will be Psalm 139, one of my favorites:
O God, you have searched me and known me,
You know when I sit down and when I rise up…….
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?…….
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Each time I read this beautiful, ancient poetry, I am reminded that these words have come to express the Holy’s movement in the lives of all humans. Those who look like me or you, believe as we might, see the world and all it holds in a similar way. But it also applies to those who are very different, who name God differently or don’t claim a God at all, those whose lives have taken them down roads we can not imagine, roads we might not have the courage or strength to endure. The psalmist and Dr. King both offer to us a way of embracing the gifts of each individual as we come together to build what he named beloved community.
As we go forward into this week and this year, may we each remember that we are, indeed, fearfully and wonderfully. And so are all those we pass on the street. May we remember and listen and learn from the diverse voices and lives of our world as we continue to find ways to build new ways for a common life for us, our children and our children’s children.
Blessed be.