Blessing in a Time of Violence

Today, my bones ached when waking. Perhaps yours did too, seeing the date September 11 on your calendar; thinking about the violence and terror of that day; thinking about the violence and terror in the days, in the years after. For me that feeling only worsened reading more about the assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday, learning more about yet another school shooting on the same afternoon. In our society that is saturated with violent speech, violent action, and where retaliation seems such a tightly held value, the air feels thick with worry, sorrow, and fear. 

As a community of faith, we are people who uphold the values of inclusion, community, spiritual transformation, and justice. We believe that all people should be able to flourish, and not at the expense of others. This week we are reminded of the urgency of these values. This week when the Supreme Court gave legal authority to use racial profiling during immigration sweeps and raids. This week that is marked by political, social, and school violence. So, let us stand firm in our values that are centered on love, not hate. As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he himself also a victim of political assassination, said, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Even though Charlie Kirk’s words have been used against the LGBTQ community, even though his words incited violence, it is only compassion, it is only love that will ultimately win; the killing of Kirk is wrong. Children having access to weapons is wrong. Racial profiling is wrong.

This week, we are starting a new series: Our Core Calling: A Series on Our Core Values. This series seems timely as we will be invited to consider what it means to live into the heart of who we are and what we believe at MCCGSL. This series will allow us to dive deeper into what it means to be a community rooted in radical inclusion, nourished in queer community, transformed by God’s liberating love, and to be a people embodied in justice. In this season of worship (and always) we will celebrate a faith and a God where everyone belongs at the table, where love resists exclusion, where lives are renewed by Love’s deep and warming presence, and where worship overflows into action both within and beyond our church walls. 

Friends, wherever you are in your sorrow, your rage, your questions, know you are held in community and you are not alone. In these violent times, let us not turn toward violence ourselves, but increase our capacity for compassion, kindness, and love. Perhaps the sign at a neighboring church sums our charge up best: “Do small things with great love.” 

Blessing in a Time of Violence
by Jan Richardson

Which is to say
this blessing
is always.
Which is to say
there is no place
this blessing
does not long
to cry out
in lament,
to weep its words
in sorrow,
to scream its lines
in sacred rage.

Which is to say
there is no day
this blessing ceases
to whisper
into the ear
of the dying,
the despairing,
the terrified.
Which is to say
there is no moment
this blessing refuses
to sing itself
into the heart
of the hated
and the hateful,
the victim
and the victimizer,
with every last
ounce of hope
it has.

Which is to say
there is none
that can stop it,
none that can
halt its course,
none that will
still its cadence,
none that will
delay its rising,
none that can keep it
from springing forth
from the mouths of us
who hope,
from the hands of us
who act,
from the hearts of us
who love,
from the feet of us
who will not cease
our stubborn, aching
marching, marching

until this blessing
has spoken
its final word,
until this blessing
has breathed
its benediction
In every place,
in every tongue:

Peace.
Peace.
Peace.

May our hearts burn with love, 
Pastors Lauren & Eli 

Praying in Love: Prayers During Times of Violence

Today, we sit in the grief of a school year that begins with a school shooting. I’m struck by the words of the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey who said, “Don’t just say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers’ right now. These kids were literally praying.” All around St. Louis, too, children were praying in their own all school masses, and many districts held previously scheduled active shooter drills. What will it take for us to learn that more guns are not the answer? 

In our community, we hold the complexity of the shooter being of trans experience with tenderness. Hurt people hurt people. In a tragedy like this, we pray for all those who are hurt. All the failed systems. All the wounded healers. All the heartbreak. All the empty seats. And, we work for those same people and families. We work so that our streets become safer not because there are more weapons but because there are fewer. We work so that Catholics can worship in peace and trans kids can receive the care they need. We work to open our own hearts to things we don’t understand. 

Last night, at an event held by Margaret of Scotland Parish in St. Louis, a panel discussion on LGBTQ inclusion was held. We prayed for the violence of our world, for broken families, and hear stories of the ways some in the Catholic Church are shaping the conversation toward inclusion of LGBTQ people. It was a healing evening full of hope.

And so we work and we pray. We pray, not in the ways prayer can be used as an excuse to dismiss the pain, our complicity in living in a society that holds guns with such reverence, but we pray to discern our part in the solution. We pray to channel our energy to the broken and brokenhearted. We pray to bind our destinies to the work of love. And so, as we watch for legislature in our cities, counties, and states, we pray that our next steps become clear.

Let us pray these words by Padraig O’Tuama: 
God of day and night, 
In the great poem of creation 
we read that 
we were considered very good, 
and that you 
find glory
in us.

We look around our city: 
the birds finding home 
the name of it 
the shape of it
the bustle and magnificence of it 

the poverty of it 
the complicity of it 
the repressed stories of it

the generosity of it 
the corners of kindness 
on every corner

the future of it 
the past it hides from 
greed and goodness 
violence and visions 
burdens and bodies 
everywhere.

We pray for our city 
and for the cities we are.

Breathe in us
just like you always do and renew us 
with every twilight 
with every morning 
with every encounter 
with every opportunity.

With you in every breath, every action of love, and every prayer,
Pastor Lauren

We Believe in Fairies!

We Believe in Fairies!

Thirty-five years after Rev. Steve Pieters was interviewed by Tammy Faye Bakker on Praise the Lord’s Tammy’s House Party, Steve spoke with queer journalist Evan Brechtel, saying:

 “It’s a shame that we still have to fight the fight. It seems like religious bigotry is so...I can’t think of the right word. It’s promulgated by fundamentalists and conservative churches. Hatred seems to be part of the discourse going on today...and I think a lot of it is because of conservative religious institutions that continue to promulgate that LGBT people are less than heterosexuals.”

In 2022, former Kentucky County Clerk, Kim Davis was sued after refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple, citing her religious beliefs as the reason she would not grant the license. She lost the case and was ordered to pay $100,000. Now, she has sued, and her case may be taken to the Supreme Court for consideration this fall. This is the furthest a challenge to the 2015 Obergefell ruling that granted Nationwide access to marriage for same-gender-loving couples. 

It is a shame we still have to fight the fight, and perhaps it’s most shameful that the church is in the middle of the argument. 

As we work for a world where everyone can flourish, we look to our faith tradition that reminds us we are all created in the image of God. This same God is known in Jesus’s example of practicing a preferential option for the material poor and poor in Spirit, so that we can know love from the inside out. 

This week, as we look around us, within us, and across our world, let us look for miracles as often as we are left breathless with despair. Let us remember our Saint, Rev. Steve Pieters who taught us to believe in miracles and reminded us to follow fairies who point us toward making the impossible possible. 

If you need some inspiration and want to see courage in action, here is a link to Steve’s full interview with Tammy Faye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjXXdQ6VceQ&t=3s

Mindful of the Miracles, 

Pastor Lauren 

Photo is of Rev. Steve with his fairy want at MCCGSL

Marriage Equality Statement 2025

As you have probably learned by now, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider hearing a case seeking to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges – the landmark decision which recognized marriage equality nationwide 10 years ago. Overturning marriage equality would not only be messy and complicated; it would also be an act of injustice that goes against everything we know about the heart of God. Yet we also know we are living in a time when morality is too often replaced for political or monetary gain, when the dignity and rights of those who do not fit within heteronormative structures are time and time again challenged, and when precedent can often be discarded or overturned.

We, at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Saint Louis (MCCGSL), have never needed the government’s permission to affirm love. Long before the law recognized marriage equality, we were performing marriages for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer couples. The denomination has stood for marriage equality for over 55 years. We must remember that God’s blessings cannot be legislated. We, as MCC, always have and always will marry people regardless of what the Supreme Court decides. God’s justice is not bound and can never be bound by the rulings of human courts. We stand firm in our beliefs that gay marriage is a fundamental human right and that queer people are whole and holy just as they/we are. We will continuously affirm that God delights in our sacred love. We celebrate a God who celebrates and understands queer love. God blesses queer love in all its forms.

At this time, we are called, not just as Christians, but as human beings, to do more than watch history unfold. We are called to pray fiercely and to speak truth especially when it shakes the room. Even when we ourselves shake or tremble in fear. We are called to stand in the public square for justice, hand-in-hand as fear will yet again try to scatter and divide us. We are called to be a people who weep and hold the ones that we love oh so closely. We are called to rise and speak out when the world would rather we sit down and be silent. We will not be silent! We will not allow the love of God — which has no gender, no borders, and no end — to be diminished by narrow minds or hardened hearts.

The poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer reminds us that peace is not a pristine destination, but something often grown in the dirt — amid blight, drought, and the mess of real life. This is where we find ourselves: in the dirt, in the mess, in the struggle. And yet, we know that God is here too, in every step forward, in every act of courage, in every moment of stubborn hope. Our hearts may scrape against the rugged earth, but we will keep moving, always together. Because love is worth it! Justice is worth it! We are worth it! And every single one of God’s beloved children is worth it!

If you need to talk to someone about your anger, fear, or worry, please reach out to your pastors - or a pastor of any MCC church. And, if you have been on the fence about getting married, it might be time to schedule your wedding. At MCCGSL, we are happy to be with you to prepare you for that sacred commitment.

We know there will be many days of advocacy ahead for us all. May the God of justice be with us in our fight.

You Do Not Carry This All Alone

You Do Not Carry This All Alone

Lyrics:

You do not carry this all alone
No you do not carry this all alone
This is way too big for you
To carry this on your own
So, you do not carry this all alone

There is so much heartache in our world today. We carry burdens both seen and unseen. And sometimes, the weight feels unbearable. Sometimes we can believe that we carry these things all alone, or that someone might not understand what we are going through so we keep it hidden.

At Chants and Cheers, we begin with the same song every time along with an invitation to sing it to different part of our individual and communal body.

This song serves as a reminder, a centering practice, a connective prayer. It is a reminder that we are not as alone as we sometimes feel; even in the lonliness or confusion of the violence that exists in the world all around us, we are still connected to each other.

The song that we sing is called “You Do Not Carry This All Alone” by Alexandra “Ahlay” Blakely.

With this song, I want to invite us into sacred listening. As you listen to the song above, or simply meditate on the lyrics, as each new verse comes along, you are invited to listen it from the following perspectives:

1. Sing to Yourself

Take a deep breath. Ground your body. Feel the earth beneath your feet. Place one hand on your heart. The other on your belly, if it feels right. Let your breath slow.

Now, sing these words to yourself:

“You do not carry this all alone.”
Repeat them gently.
This burden is too big for you to hold alone.
Let yourself receive this truth.
You do not have to hold it all. You were never meant to.

2. Sing to Someone You Love

Bring to mind someone in your life who is carrying something heavy right now. Picture their face. Hold them in your heart.

And now, sing to them:
“You do not carry this all alone.”
Let your song become a prayer. A message. A whisper of solidarity and love.
If you feel moved, send them the song.

3. Sing to a Community in Pain

Now widen your circle.
Bring to mind a community that is grieving, struggling, or burdened.
A people who need to remember: they are not alone.
That we are stronger together.

Sing to them:
“You do not carry this all alone.”

Feel the circle grow wider.
Let the weight be shared.
Let the song hold them up.

4. Hear God Singing to You

And now, come back to stillness.
As you listen one more time,
imagine these words not as yours—but as a voice greater than yours.
A voice of love. Of Spirit. Of God.

Hear your Creator, whispering to your weary soul:

“You do not carry this all alone.”
You are seen. You are held. You are not alone in your sorrow, your fear, or your pain. We have a God that cries, weeps, and sorrows alongside us. Remember that God is with you. Always.

Let us end this embodied prayer with words from Kelly Hayes, "When Things Fall Apart":

"I know that the work of justice and change making will continue. It always has. My concern, as I write these words, is that you are able to stay with us in this struggle, as we fight for what could be. There are no fairytale endings and no shortcuts. What we have is each other and our will to remake the world. I cannot tell you it will be enough, because I do not know what the future holds. However, I can tell you that we and the world are worth fighting for, and that there is love, hope, and purpose to be found in the pursuit of justice, and in the work of collective survival."

In Our Collective Remembrance that We Are Never Alone,
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 

Embracing the Great Turning

A few weeks ago, Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel after boarding The Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s demonstration to bring needed aid to Gaza. In response, she said, “The world needs more angry women.” This week, we lost one of ecology’s most prolific voices, who gave meaning to the anger and grief that comes with facing the climate crisis: Joanna Macy. Perhaps in studying Joanna Macy, we can learn to hold our own anger and grief for all of the degradation of our world; for the hungry, the unhoused, the rise of hatred, and the war-torn places that burn holes into the topography of our planet. 

Macy, whom you can read more about here in this gifted article, offered in her life’s work a reminder that we are connected in the web of life. Therefore, we are connected equally to the suffering of the world and also the joy of it; we are connected in the hopelessness and in the hopefulness; we are connected in the hurting and the restoration. She spoke of a way to use our grief toward action, speaking of the spiral of connection where we: acknowledge gratitude for the world; express pain for the world; “see with fresh eyes”; and “go forth.” 

Perhaps in this, we too can find the courage to say yes to expeditions like Greta Thunberg did, where we take risks to stand with the hungry, the hurting, the disenfranchised, and the voiceless. We don’t have to go further than our backyards to make a difference, as the very soil cries out for refuge from the scorching temperatures affected by our greed. 

So let us take our grief, our anger, our homage to ancestors like Joanna Macy as we participate in the great turning of our world toward flourishing. Today, Macy’s will be our benediction into this kind of work: 

Grace and The Great Turning

-Joanna Macy

When you act on behalf
Of something greater than yourself,
you begin to feel it acting through you
with a power greater than your own.

This is grace.

Today, as we take risks
for the sake of something greater
than our separate, individual lives,
we are feeling graced
by other beings and by Earth itself.

Those with whom and on whose behalf we act
give us strength 
and eloquence
and staying power
we didn’t know we had.

We just need to practice knowing that
and remembering that we are sustained
by each other
in the web of life.
Our true power comes as a gift, like grace,
because in truth it is sustained by others.
If we practice drawing on the wisdom
and beauty and strengths
of our fellow human beings
and our fellow species
we can go into any situation
and trust 
that the courage and intelligence required
will be supplied.

Living into the Great Turning With You,
Pastor Lauren

Photo: First red tomato of the season, a celebration of the joy of our planet.