The Psalmist Who Cries, Laments, and Rages

Beloved Community,

My bones and my heart continue to ache these days. We are living in a time of deep violence. And perhaps, truthfully, we always have been. Earlier this week, two lives were lost in ways that demand our attention. A 21-year-old Black man from Mississippi, Trey Reed, was found hanging from a tree. That very same day, Cory Zukatis, a 36-year-old white, unhoused man, was also found hanging from a tree.

Within hours, the police disregarded the details surrounding his death and ruled out foul play in Trey Reed’s death. To accept vague explanations surrounding his death without deeper investigation is to echo a long legacy of silence, denial, and complicity. We cannot and will not forget the long and devastating history of racial terror and anti-Black violence in Mississippi and across this nation. It dishonors Trey, his family, and his community who loved him so dearly. His loved ones deserve truth, transparency, and justice. And we, as part of the human family, deserve the same. We must hold onto truth. We must demand truth. We must speak truth even if our voices shake. We must speak up even when we don't always know exactly how to say it.

As we dwell in the psalms together at church, I am reminded of the psalmists who cry out, who lament, who even rage at God. They remind us that it is faithful to grieve, faithful to cry out, faithful even to shout our anger at God. It is faithful and holy work to name violence, to grieve, and to cry out for something better. And still, in the midst of lament and fear and the unknown, the psalmists remind us that hope has the last word. Love has the last word. Justice has the last word. 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Change is often slow, and often painful, but it does come. Love will win. Justice will win. Truth will win. And we do not say these words with empty actions. We must know that the arc does not bend on its own. It bends because we refuse to let white supremacy, state violence, and systemic neglect be the final word. We are invited and called to be part of that love, part of that justice, part of that hope that makes the world a better place for us all.

So let us pray and dream together, with the words of Mark Miller’s song, “I Dream of a Church”:

I dream of a place we all can call home
I dream of a world where justice is flowing
With hope and peace growing,
Where God’s will is done

O God fill our hearts to reach out in welcome 
Make us to see your vision once more 
Let's dream of a world 
Where our hands are your hands 
We offer ourselves O God make it so

O Holy One, we truly pray for the day when we believe our hands are Your hands. Your hands of healing, of welcome, of justice, of peace. Make it so, God. Make it so.

With love, grief, outrage, and hope,

Pastor Eli  

For Such a Time as This...

I have been to countless conferences, workshops, and trainings focused on this iconic phrase from the book of Esther. In nearly every commissioning for something new, to bless us over the threshold moments in our lives, in ordinations, installations, and blessings this phrase is invoked to send urgency into our being that perhaps it is true that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, for such a time as this. 

On my best days, I can look in the mirror and see myself and you with me, saying “yes” it is us, it is you, it is me. Then some days, I can’t even bear the image in the mirror because I’ve looked at the images in the newspaper first. When I look into my own eyes, I see the eyes of starving people half a world away, I see skeletal children with empty bowls begging for mercy, I see the screams of mothers holding the lifeless bodies of their babies who have starved to death. What can I do in such a time as this? What can any of us ordinary citizens do? 

This week, this poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Tommer arrested me and brought tears to my eyes: 

In the Airport, I wonder about enough

Could they ever be enough,
these stumbling attempts
to bring kindness to an aching world?
Enough, this holding the door for a stranger,
this saying I’m sorry, this holding a place in line?
How could it be enough, asks the ache,
when today I saw the photo of the mother
holding the starving child in Gaza,
his brown legs as thin as my wrists.
I am sick with helplessness.
What does it mean, enough?
Beside me on a bench,
a man I have never met is humming.
His tune blooms like a sun in my chest.
The warmth twines with the beat of my question,
How could any small act be enough?
Until the child in the photo and all children
are safe and fed and loved and held by loving mothers
who are safe and fed and loved
and held by loving others who are safe
and fed and loved—until then,
how could anything ever be enough?
The old man beside me has started to sing.
His eyes are closed, and his
low gentle voice braids beauty
into everything around him.
Even the questions that will never
have answers. Even this terrible ache.
How deeply I want to believe
it is not too late to save this world.

I read this poem the morning after coming home from our family reunion, which was a time of love, grace, and abundance. I read this after I spent much of the day in the car, catching up on the news and reading a book about rebuilding a world that is closer to the earth and her natural patterns. I read this after going to the grocery store for ingredients for dinners and lunches in the coming days. 

I did my shopping at Trader Joe’s, where you shop in a way that, to me, mimics lining up for an amusement park ride. At the end, instead of a ride on a roller coaster, you get to pay for your groceries, ring a bell for good service, and eat a good snack in the car on the way home. Usually, this snack is an impulse buy in the freezer section, something that glimmers over the frozen blueberries in TJ’s unusual organization. 

This time, as I was returning my cart, I ran into a fellow shopper who meandered through the aisles with me, who also treated himself to a car snack. We exchanged a knowing look with our car snacks in hand en route back to our cars from the cart return. The man was wearing a large kippa; I had on something with a large rainbow on it. He offered me a piece of dark chocolate with orange in it. I offered him some dried mango with chili flakes on it. In this exchange, two strangers from two different backgrounds, likely with very different beliefs, I felt a hope for what we can be when we reach across the borders of our lives with an offering of nourishment. I can’t fix the genocide happening in Palestine, but I can share offerings with a likely Orthodox Jewish man as we both look into each other’s eyes, hoping for an end to the starvation of God’s people. 

Is it enough? I am not sure. But that day, it’s what I had. If we practice the muscles of kindness more often, perhaps the muscles of hatred will atrophy replaced by the muscles of compassion. Perhaps these actions of love can help our prayers to cause a ripple effect that saves a child from starvation. Perhaps trusting that these choices are enough will in fact, be enough to save us on this roller coaster of life. 

God, in your mercy, receive our acts of kindness as actions toward the end of suffering for your people. Be with us in our bewilderment, sorrow, and anger. Show us that our proximate actions can and do make a difference. Meet us in our unbelief. 

In solidarity with those who cry out to God known in so many ways and through so many names, we cry out to the compassionate man of Jesus who taught us what it is like to live with loving kindness, 
Pastor Lauren 

Meditation During Eastertide

Every Thursday we have a ritual of receiving the eBlast. Perhaps, you open it in the morning and peruse it over coffee. Or perhaps, you take a peek later in the day for inspiration and to be reminded of upcoming events. I request that within your ritual eBlast engagement you slow down a wee bit more to meditate on the following Eastertide statements. If you are willing, I challenge you to set a timer for 59 seconds of meditation for each statement.

Statement 1

On Sunday, Pastor Lauren shared, “In the middle of our grief, we need to be reminded of what we know.”[1] Grief ebbs and flows. Hope lives through our cyclical or unexpected or resistant grief. In whatever state of grief you currently occupy, what do you still hope for? Invite God to that space.

Statement 2

Pastor Lauren opened her sermon with the poignant reminder that “You are beautiful. You are the people that God chose to live in, that Jesus is resurrected through.”[2] Hm, Jesus resurrecting through me, you, us. How do you feel Jesus resurrecting through you? Invite God to that space.

Statement 3

Pastor Lauren stated that “Jesus inspires us to love even in the gloomiest circumstances."[3] But what she didn’t say is that love compromises our existence or requires us to ignore or forego our and others’ very real needs. Love tends to all of our very real needs. Where do you need love to show up for you? For a loved one? For a stranger? Invite God to that space.

Statement 4

For our last meditation, we turn to Pastor Lauren’s urging to “Look in the direction of hope." We are the beauty that Jesus resurrects through. What an awe-some connection to wonder and beauty. Even if for a moment, we can venture to the mountaintop of hope to imagine life’s beauty that could be if only we “believe.” I invite you with God to venture to your hopeful mountaintop; pause to witness the beauty you can imagine; and pray “For What You Find on the Mountaintop” by Cole Arthur Riley.

God above,

We thank you for allowing us to journey up. That we would be able to see a place not just from within it but from a distance is a gift we do not readily comprehend. Here, as we look out at what seems as if it can fit in the palm of our hand, remind us of beauty’s vastness. In this moment may we be both large and small…Grow in us wonder that is willing to bow to the beauty of the natural world, [which includes our healthy imagination], that it would be a path to humility and not ego. That we would understand it does not exist for us, but it is our divine fortune that we would be moved by it. And we are moved, God. May this view form us and keep us, as we allow our souls to remain stirred when we return to the ground we’ve known. May it be so.[4]

[1] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship,” livestream, Grief & Hope (St. Louis, Mo: Metropolitan Community Church Greater St. Louis, April 20, 2025), http://www.mccgsl.org/live.

[2] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship.”

[3] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship.”

[4] Cole Arthur Riley, “For What You Find on the Mountaintop,” in Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent Books, 2024), 35.

Quiet

“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can.” ― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

In these quiet days between Christmas and the new year, I invite you into rest, stillness, and presence. This season calls us to pause, to lean into the rhythms of winter, and to listen to what our bodies and spirits need. Learning to slow down and respond to our needs is not always intuitive. It’s a skill that requires practice, patience, and intentionality.

Winter offers us a model of rest. Trees stand bare, conserving energy for the spring. Snakes burrow deep, retreating from the cold. Squirrels rest after months of preparation, having stored their provisions. The natural world shows us the importance of embracing the season we are in, honoring the rhythms of stillness and restoration.

What would it look like to take a moment of quiet today? Quiet doesn’t always mean silence. It can mean creating space for stillness within yourself, even when life around you feels busy or loud. It’s about pausing to ask: What do I need today?

You are a whole being with needs that stretch across many dimensions—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. What might nurture you in this season? Perhaps it’s a short walk in the crisp winter air, a cup of warm tea, a long soak in the bath, or simply sitting still for a moment to breathe deeply.

After reading this, I encourage you to take a moment of stillness. Close your eyes if you can, and listen. What is your body asking for? How can you tend to yourself today with kindness and care?

Breath prayer:
Inhale: I am still
Exhale: I am present

All My Days Prayer Beads

The tradition of using a string of beads or rope knots in prayer is an ancient tradition and a ritual shared by many faith traditions around the globe. The common connection is the ability to give structure to personal prayer devotion. It offers a way to remind and revisit various areas of focus and concern. Repeated rituals can be powerful as they help shape our habits. Please use the image of the Prayer Beads above and the Guided Meditations below to enhance your prayer life.