What the world needs now…

 I wish I could have gone to church today. I needed to hear the choir sing, and make a joyful noise. And I needed to take heart in a homily that gave me hope.

In my mind, I was grateful to replay a Bishop Michael Curry homily (presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church) that did just that. He began by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. Love is the only way.”
“I’m talking about some power. Real power,” Bishop Curry continued. “Power to change the world. If you don’t believe me, well, there were some old slaves in America’s antebellum South who explained the dynamic power of love and why it has the power to transform. They explained it this way: They sang a spiritual, even in the midst of their captivity. It’s one that says there is a balm in Gilead, a healing balm — something that can make things right. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.”
Bishop Curry goes on…
“Imagine our homes and families when love is the way.
Imagine neighborhoods and communities when love is the way.
Imagine governments and nations when love is the way.
Imagine business and commerce when love is the way.
Imagine this tired, old world when love is the way.
When love is the way—unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive—then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.
When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.
When love is the way, poverty will become history.
When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary.
When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more.
When love is the way, there is plenty of good room for all of God’s children. Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other like we are actually family.
When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all. And we are brothers and sisters, children of God. My brothers and sisters, that’s a new heaven, a new Earth, a new world, a new human family.”
And I say, “Amen.”
Let the choir sing…
(Homily delivered for the Royal Wedding in St. George’s Chapel)

And my heart is still reeling and hurting from the photos from Minneapolis.
Let us remember that we are walking one another home, and let us stand in solidarity for peace and compassion, and against violence and hatred.
Let us stand for kindness, and against cruelty.
Let us stand for inclusion, and against bigotry and exclusion.
Let us stand for “we are in this together”, and against us versus them.
And I write this on Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the date Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Sabbath Moments