National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month 

April means that it is national poetry month!! Poetry to me is a time to slow down, listen closely, and make space for the creative voice within each of us. This month, we have the joy of hosting a poetry writing workshop with the help of Faye. Together, we’ve explored not only the elements of poetry, but also the vulnerability it takes to express and share something honest and personal. Creativity is both a gift and a practice, and its been a blessing to do alongside beloved community.

In our most recent class, we focused on blessings and odes. These are forms of poetry that ask us to pay attention to all that is around us that is worthy of our praise, gratitude, or wonder. It can reminds us that creativity is not just about producing something “good,” but simply about seeing the world with care and intention and highlighting those elements along the way.

In that spirit, we invite you to join us for our Open Mic Night on May 20th at 7 p.m., held at the church and online. Whether you’ve attended our class or are simply curious, you are welcome!! Come to read, to listen, or simply to be present. There is something powerful about gathering to celebrate creativity in all its forms. It reminds us that every voice matters, and that beauty often emerges when we make space for one another. An important part of what it means to be community is celebrating each other and our unique gifts.

As we prepare for our open mic night, you are invited to write your own ode or blessing. This could be to a person, a place, a moment, or even something small and easily overlooked. What might change if we chose to honor the ordinary, as well as the extraordinary?

We close with a blessing by Imtiaz Dharker, whose work beautifully captures struggle and grace and abundance:

Blessing

The skin cracks like a pod.
There never is enough water.
Imagine the drip of it,
the small splash, echo
in a tin mug,
the voice of a kindly god.

Sometimes, the sudden rush
of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,
silver crashes to the ground
and the flow has found
a roar of tongues. From the huts,
a congregation: every man woman
child for streets around
butts in, with pots,
brass, copper, aluminum,
plastic buckets,
frantic hands,
and naked children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.

—Imtiaz Dharker

Imtiaz Dharker is a Pakistani-Scottish poet, writer and artist. She lives in London and Mumbai, writes in English. In her poetry she takes on topics such as homeland, freedom and travel in an imaginative and questioning way and points to cultural and geographical conflicts within society and gender politics, which has brought her the 2014 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Cholmondeley Award.

One of MCCGSL’s core values is social justice.

One of MCCGSL’s core values is social justice. More and more, social justice is critical to achieving our mission, vision, and promotion of human flourishing in our congregation and within our extended communities.

We have done some amazing things with your support, urging, and generative impact and now we are excited to announce that we are formalizing and strengthening that support and impact by adding a Social Justice Team to help us have a stronger voice and bigger impact in our world and our communities. As more people, sister organizations, and community members look toward us to help bend the arc of justice, comes the need to add more "helping hands" to continue the work and grow our impact.  

With excitement and joy, we announce/introduce Julie Hurst who has agreed to serve as the leader of our newly established Social Justice Team! What a blessing to have her lead us in this new endeavor.

Below is a letter from Julie: 

“As a lifelong Christian, I have always embraced a personal mission to live like Jesus and I take that deeply to heart. To me, that means it is crucial to create a world where everyone has what they need to survive and knows they are loved exactly as they are. It is my joy to be part of a congregation which shares this passion.

I am thrilled to join in announcing the official launch of our Social Justice Team. This team will deepen and build on the work we have done and are doing.

Our goal is to move forward with greater intentionality, building a liberating movement both within and beyond our church walls.

The Social Justice Team will begin its work with strategic planning, collaborating closely with church leadership to ensure our efforts align with our broader mission and vision.

Our suggested plan is that each quarter, we will offer educational programming and advocacy opportunities. This may include book studies, movie viewing and discussion, guest speakers, testifying before elected officials, or letter writing campaigns. 

We will work with the pastoral staff to continue to deepen relationships with other community organizations. Prior to election time, the team will host a voter education forum and help folx develop a plan to vote. And through it all we will keep the congregation informed of upcoming social justice opportunities and plans. 

While our long-term vision is to create lasting societal change, we recognize that many in our community need help simply to make it through today. Therefore, we will also coordinate mission and charity programs to provide immediate support. These service projects will allow us to show up for our congregation and neighborhood in tangible and necessary ways.

These are lofty goals, and they require a dedicated team with a shared desire to transform community. 

So, if you are ready to help make MCCGSL and St. Louis a place where all people can thrive -- please sign-up to join the Social Justice Team today (or at least to learn more about our next steps)!”

Creating a Community Where ALL can Flourish, 
Rev. Lauren Bennett and Julie Hurst

All Things New

All Things New

I sense a need for a revival in the Christian church -- not just MCCGSL, but the church as a whole. For too long, violence, bullying, and bigotry have been used by the highest office in our country, passed off as an expression of holiness. Threatening genocide, allowing conversion therapy to continue, and stripping rights of trans people are just some examples of ways Christianity has been used as a front for evil acts. 

The name of God, the name of Jesus, and the practice of The Way has been co-opted by people who invoke their religion to do nothing but oppress, while gaining riches for themselves. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in predominately white Christian churches or people claiming to be Christian, who have clearly never opened a Bible. 

As a Christian pastor, I'm sometimes worried about claiming that place in the world too loudly. I don't want it to seem that I am behind these egregious acts done in my name as a Christian or an American. 

This week, I woke up in the middle of the night convicted that I need to claim my faith in a more evangelical way. If you Google "evangelical" the first things that come up are all about the evangelical movement -- one that claims to "follow the way of Jesus and is focused on scripture-study." The word evangelical comes from the Greek and means "Good news." I think it's time we reclaim this word - to offer Good News in our work, words, and study. Progressive Protestants are well educated in Biblical teachings -- let us claim our part in being well-versed in the Bible. It is time to claim where good news comes from -- in human flourishing, in doing our part to mend creation. 

Friends, it is time to get serious about our faith and claim it's impact on our hearts. To follow the way of Jesus with wide, expansive love and earnestness. To claim who we are in the world. 

Even though I may be hesitant to claim my Christian faith with the way "Christianity" is thrown around to bless hideous behavior, I often end up in long conversations after “coming out” as a Christian minister. Just today when getting a coffee, someone complimented my necklace. I told them about our church, and she said she has never met a pastor before. After saying more about us, she said she might have to come sometime — as we are doing something different than the Christianity depicted in the news — and that IS good news. 

This season, we will be exploring the theme All Things New, examining stories of beginnings, conversation, and fresh starts. How might we use this time to cultivate our hearts and create space for good news? How might be prepare our lives to embody a new way, a fresh perspective, a new Christianity. 

To help enlighten and prepare us, we have two opportunities to join in study and community: 

Join Faye Branum for a poetry writing class. You don’t need to be good at writing! Think of this as an opportunity to open your heart to the seeds growing in you. 

Join Pastor Tijuana for a reading of Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. This book will get you thinking about new seeds that need to be planted through a science fiction perspective.

Whatever you do, may this season be a time of exploration as we claim our role in showing the true side of Christianity -- one of kindness, love, and joy. 

Blessings, 
Pastor Lauren

A Prayer For TDOV

A Prayer for Trans Day of Visibility

Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), every year, seems increasingly important to celebrate. We live in a world that increasingly sees and names trans-ness as a threat, something that should be hidden or denied. Here in the state of Missouri, and around the USA, there are countless bills that are going through the house and senate that aims to make the life of trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming folks more challenging. It can be easy to get caught up in the despair, heartache, and exhaustion.

So, I am grateful for a day like TDOV, that recenters me on the joy, celebration, and the beauty it is to both be trans and know and love other trans people. TDOV brings me back to the sacred truth that trans life is holy, radiant, creative, and oh so joyful.

On this Trans Day of Visibility, I want to honor and uplift the people in my life whose becoming made it possible for me to live more fully and authentically. I am held by trans elders who made ways out of no way, who dared to bloom in conditions that were never meant for their thriving; whose blooming made me realize that I was allowed to bloom too.

Today, I am especially holding onto the truth that joy and play are not a distraction from struggle, but that joy and play are key to resistance. Joy and play are survival. Joy and play are divine. I am reminded that trans delight is intentional.

My prayer for this Trans Day of Visibility is wrap every trans person, known and unknown, in a warm and loving embrace. I pray we find time to play, create, and dance. I pray we imagine new worlds and get glimpses of the world as it is meant to be. I pray for rest and nourishment to wash over our bodies. I pray for delight to find us, in small and in big ways. I pray for our own becoming(s) to feel more and more possibile as each day passes. I pray for all of us to be reminded the more wholly we our ourselves, the closer we are to God.

And I pray that we remember, deep in our bones, that we can trust our hearts. That we are grounded in the truth that there is nothing accidental about our existence. I pray we call can shout with confidence and love that trans-ness is sacred, holy, and beautiful. I pray for a day that everyone can see, know, affirm that truth.

With love to each of you,
Pastor Eli

The Gift of Getting Lost

When I was studying abroad in Rouen, France our professor had us meet at the train station early on the first day of class to show us the easiest way to get to campus. Centrally located, the station sits near the iconic Rouen Cathedral—the one Claude Monet spent years painting—making it easy to spot from almost anywhere in the city.

That morning, we stepped out from our host families’ homes both excited and nervous for our first full day of class en français. By the end of the day, after hours of speaking only French, we were exhausted! So, most of us decided to walk together from the hill where the university sat back down toward the train station to get a little exercise (and speak a little english) before returning to our immersive French homes. But when we arrived, we realized none of us actually knew how to get home.

For the next several hours, we wandered—walking and walking, searching for something familiar besides the train station and the cathedral. At first, it felt like a quest, an adventure where a hot meal and familiar faces awaited our arrival. But slowly, the adventure wore thin. We bickered, argued over the map, and grew frustrated that none of us had thought to write down better directions (this was before you could use GPS for anything!) Rouen, with its medieval streets and high-walled homes, has a way of making everything look the same.

Eventually, one by one, we each found our way home—but only after finding the courage to ask a shopkeeper or café owner for help.

It was in that experience I learned this: when you are lost, you can still be found—but only when you swallow your pride, surrender to your surroundings, and ask for help.

Where are you feeling lost? Who can you ask for help?

May God guide us with earthy companions to help us when we are lost and for the comfort the Spirit who guides us "home" through prayer and reflection.

Blessings and Love,
Pastor Lauren

The Gift of Emptiness

Do you perceive the glass as half full or half empty?

The way you answer this question allegedly reveals whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. Sure, it does get at your perspective—do you focus on what you have or what you don’t? The reality of human life is that we need to focus on each in turn. We need to deal with both what is present and what is missing. 

Lent brings that same attention to our spirituality. It asks us to consider what is missing in our relationship with the Divine and what about our life is getting in the way. 

This week, as we turn to The Gift of Emptiness, I’m interrogating the automatic negative often put onto the word empty. If you perceive the glass to be half empty, doesn’t that mean that there is space for more? Emptiness can be an opportunity for something new. For growth. Emptiness can also be a chance to stop. To let go of the push for busy-ness and noise. To resist the urge to “fix what’s wrong” and recognize what is right. To sit in the still and the quiet and notice the Spirit moving and God speaking. 

The Lenten season is almost half over. The season has a little more than half to go. At this near-middle, I invite you to recognize what you have gained and acknowledge that you have more to go. That balance is the essence of our journey. It is the essence of this life.

Blessings,
Pastor Tijuana 

The Gift of Being Thunderstruck

Gift of Being Thunderstruck

For those of us who live in Missouri, it feels like the weather has begged us to pay attention to God's voice thundering in the clouds all week long. Last night, many of us were kept awake by her flashes of lightning illuminating the skies of our ceilings.

How is God speaking to you this week? How has God been present to you in a new way, or in an old way that has been reframed. This week, my heart has been heavy within our global and our local communities. My heart is broken seeing the coffins of little girls whose school was bombed. My heart is broken for many of our matriarchs who have been in an out of the hospital this week: Ms. Jackie, Barb Payne, Rev. Betty, and Rosie.

And, when my heart has been heavy, I have seen the rain of the sky as God's tears. The thunder as God's anger. The lightning as a reminder of the surprising and luminous ways God shows up. So, this week, I give thanks for the thunder and thanks for the lightning. I give thanks for the budding of the tulips in my garden and for the geese honking their way back home.

After  —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[These days] after
my country bombed
a girls’ school
across the world,
part of me does not
wish to meet the day.
But just after dawn,
I wake to the relentless
honking, honking
of geese returning
from far away
to make a home again
in our yard.
I want to rewrite
yesterday so every girl
who went to school
also came home
to her family,
so every mother and father
woke this morning knowing
their child was safe in their bed.
I am so filled with horror—
we killed them—
I don’t know how to rise.
But the great noise
of the geese returning,
that harsh and strangled sound,
pulls me into the world
to meet whatever the day brings.
A goose wanders past my window,
regal with her long black throat,
proof that life goes on.
Even when we can’t imagine how.
Even then.  

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren