Advent reflection from Neko & Davey
From Weaponry to Symphony: An Artist Makes Music from Confiscated Guns
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes transformed 6,700 used weapons into an orchestra of musical instruments as an act of protest against gun violence and a firearms industry he says is killing his people.
As part of a project Reyes calls Imagine, he worked with six musicians over several weeks to re-imagine the weapons into objects that could create beautiful sounds. Together, they took the weapons apart and re-welded them into a variety of playable instruments that include wood, strings, and percussion.
Advent reflection from DeJuana McCary
The season of Advent is full of promise and surprises of joy where you least expect it. Last year at this time I was on the eve of a new beginning in starting a new job, living in a new state, and sharing a home with a stranger.
She/He had created a path..all I had to do was listen..to the Voice..learn not to panic, but to rest on the promise of always being guided just as the wise men were. They were led to a stable..I was led to the VA hospital and to a home of grace and love.
A stranger made a home for me..and changed my life.
A stranger gave a stable for the baby of hope and promise to be born.
In this last year my life has given birth..to a wiser and more intentional lifestyle.
Jesus shared the story of come unto me..and I will share great love and compassion that will change your life. He has changed mine..even when I was resistant..I learned to let go and let life.
I am thankful and have a quiet resounding joy..will you join me..learning to walk by faith and promise day by day.
BE JOYFUL!!
-DeJuana McCary
Advent Reflection by Mary Bea-Sullivan
This time of year, I often wonder what it was like for the disciples to have been so physically close to Christ. What joy to have been in that All-Loving Presence-in the morning drinking tea together, walking down dusty roads, sitting at his feet while he taught.
And then I try to imagine how it was for Peter, James, Mary Magdalene and the others during those last days. What was it like to fall so precipitously from the heights of Palm Sunday, to the depths of the crucifixion, down to the hellish darkness of what we Christians call Holy Saturday? How deep their sorrow must have been standing outside of that tomb.
We all experience some version of this emptiness-when we cannot feel God’s presence. When the consolation of God’s love is replaced with dark desolation. This experience of despair can last only a few moments; other times days, months, even years are consumed by it. Perhaps you are going through some version of this in your life now.
I remember empty and scary times of my own. The most difficult were moving to Tokyo with young children and feeling lost and alone, grieving the death of a beloved friend, and during my divorce. Each time I wanted to hurry through the uncomfortable feelings-looking for quick fixes to distract me from the pain.
Recently I was with a friend who had returned from India. She had spent time with the most impoverished people there. “I’ve traveled all over.” She said. “This trip was the hardest because I struggle with the fact that I don’t see any hope that things will get better for those people.” Listening to her I thought, this is a Holy-Hellish Saturday time for her.
Thankfully, we are a hope-filled people. Still, we have those times when we feel as if the stone has been rolled in front of the tomb. These experiences are so difficult, it is natural to want to wish them away-for ourselves and for those whom we love.
Yet there is something in the darkness of letting go of all that we have hoped for, all that we have known before, that is essential to our journey. I do not welcome Holy-Hellish Saturdays; and I am grateful for the truths they have revealed for me.
-Mary Bea Sullivan
Reflections on Beloved’s 12th Year
Dear Beloveds,
In the last year, we have been transformed by abrupt changes in the world around us. First, tornados blasted through our lives on April 27. Immediately we struck out to the homes of our members, and to the homes of strangers, helping to remove debris and to listen to the stories of loss and mystery. In the aftermath, we discovered that we were not alone in responding – sister UCC churches from around the country have come to live with us, a week at a time, to work in the driving Alabama sun, rebuilding homes for those who lost their homes. They, and we, and the lives of people whose homes are being rebuilt, are being transformed.
Many of us have been transformed by a different kind of disaster, Alabama’s immigration law, HB 56, which passed the Alabama legislature days after the April 27 tornadoes. We stepped out of our known world and entered into the lives of people affected the law, and we have been changed. We have had potluck suppers with young people and their parents who brought them here as infants. We have hosted many planning sessions for those opposing the laws. We have joined hands at vigils and rallies with other faith communities around the state standing against any law that dehumanizes our brothers and sisters. A number of us did different kinds of work, but I would say that it has been the relationships that were most transformative.
And now as we look around us, we see that our community is being transformed. When we held our first worship service in 2000, every building around us was in shambles. It looked like downtown Baghdad. We were warned that buying a building in Avondale was a bad investment; the value could only go down. Many people were afraid to come to Avondale for church, and to be honest, on a dark night it did seem quite scary. We renovated our dilapidated “little building” next door, now named the Brown Building after Beloved Marty Brown, which was one step in transformation of the neighborhood. Now there are new businesses popping up all around us! We took a chance on Avondale because there was a place for everybody here. Part of our work, as people of faith called to care for the least of these, is to help ensure that there will still be a place for everyone, as the process of transformation unfolds.
There were many other transformational moments in the last year, some I know about and many that I don’t. Our Spoken Word events are always the best thing happening in Birmingham (possibly short of worship on Sunday nights!) Watching our beautiful children grow. The way that you take care of one another. The joy you take in feeding the hungry and housing homeless families. The way we can feel our spirits rise when we sing with our Beloved Community Orchestra, or listen to LeNard and David sing ‘Guide My Steps.’
Transformation is what the Spirit of God does. We don’t get to decide when, or how, or what it will look like. We just open our minds. We open our hearts. We open our doors. And invite the Spirit to do with us as the Spirit will. That’s what we have done for 12 years. I know I have been transformed, and am ready for more. What about you?
-Rev. Angie Wright
Summer 2012
No Turning Back: Alabama Anti-Immigrant Laws Unite Opposition
Originally featured on Sojourners God’s Politics Blog
We lost a bitter legislative battle this year, as Alabama Legislators voted to make the nation’s most toxic anti-immigrant law more poisonous than anyone imagined. Added to the notorious HB 56 is a requirement that the names and faces of undocumented persons be plastered on the web and in prominent public places — the new law stops just short of putting targets on their backs.
Protests at the Alabama Statehouse. Courtesy GBM
Teachers are still required to interrogate schoolchildren about their immigration status. People of faith, Good Samaritans, and family members are now felons if they knowingly drive five undocumented children to the store, the doctor, or Vacation Bible School. Racial profiling provisions make every trip to school, work, and church a nightmare.
The legislators — all Republicans — must have laughed all the way to golf games waiting for them back in their districts. They think they won.
Just because they were sitting at the front of the bus, they think they were driving.
Little do they know that they have created their own worst nightmare. Their efforts to rid Alabama of ethnic diversity have backfired on them, bringing forth a multicultural, bilingual movement that would not have emerged in Alabama for another 50 years were it not for HB 56 and its evil twin, HB 658. Legislators’ wrongs have dared people to claim their rights as human beings. Republican efforts to divide have united a new people — brown, black, and white — who lock arms and sing, “We Are One Family, One Alabama.” Lawmakers’ fear of change is no match for this new people’s determination not to go back to Alabama’s old days of hatred and shame.
Alabama’s new hate laws were written expressly to terrorize people so irreversibly that they would flee the state. Some did. Others hid inside their homes like Jesus’ disciples locked inside the upper room, huddled in fear of what the authorities might do to them. But instead of being driven out by vicious legislation, Latino leaders have emerged in 22 communities across the state to stand up for the human and civil rights of their people.
How were they affected by a year of battling against hate? In their own words: They learned to overcome fear. What perfect poetic justice: lawmakers used fear as a weapon, but it backfired. They unwittingly taught their own victims to stand strong against fear and intimidation, how to work together, how to win allies, how to make change in a hostile world.
When the legislature opened in February, many Latinos, regardless of citizenship status, were barred from visiting Statehouse galleries and offices of their legislators. By the time it closed in May, a new reality existed. Crowds chanted, “The State House is Our House,” and in doing so, they took on the responsibilities of citizenship by standing against unjust, immoral laws at no small risk.
There are relics in the legislature who may choose to stand in the Statehouse door, staving off change as long as they can, and they’ll end up right where George Wallace did — with the door of history slammed in their faces.
While it may look like nothing in Alabama changed this year, everything did.
There is no turning back.
Rev. Angie Wright is Pastor of Beloved Community United Church of Christ and Faith in Community Coordinator for Greater Birmingham Ministries in Birmingham, Alabama.
Our Daily Bread
My mother loves to cook. She always loved to try out new recipes, which unfortunately did not go over very well with her four young children. Unfortunately, her culinary skills were lost on us when we were young. Often she would spend hours preparing a new exotic dish, only to be met with cries of, “Oh, gross! What is this?”
That’s what the freed but hungry slaves said when God sent them out to gather food during their journey toward the promised land. The word “manna” actually means “what is this??”
A people set free from slavery prayed, “Give us our daily bread.” Manna was God’s answer.
God gave instructions to these pilgrims about the divine provisions.
Each morning the heads of households were go out and gather manna for that day.
Each householder was to gather the same amount for each person in his household.
On the 6th day they were to gather enough for 2 days.
On the 7th day they were not to gather at all.
Some funny things happened. Some gathered more than God instructed, but even so, they had nothing left over. Some gathered less, but still had enough. Those who tried to hoard for future days found that the manna spoiled overnight and became infested with worms. Those who went out to gather on the 7th day, found none.
This is the economy of God.
There is miraculously enough for each person, each and every day. God provides, we participate. We gather and we distribute. We are entrusted with this holy duty. If we keep too much for ourselves, it will spoil and become infested with worms. This may be metaphorical, but it’s worth considering during this season of Lent. We are entrusted with providing for all who are in our care, all who are unable to care for themselves. This is not metaphorical, and our failure to do so is also worth considering during this season of Lent.
God could feed the world without us, but for some reason, we are given the blessing and burden of putting food on the tables of the world. Our own children may scrunch up their noses and say, “gross, what is that?,” but many are hungry for the bread of Life. That is both metaphorical, and not.
-Rev. Angie Wright
Lenten reflection from Cindy Jones
I am afraid to live and I am afraid to die: I am afraid to get mad and I am afraid to cry: Fear is squeezing the life out of me. It prohibits me from chasing my dreams and broadening my horizons. I am scared of the unknown. His skin is not like mine so how could he understand me. She is in a wheelchair so how can she know how I feel? The family is in a country where they do not speak our language so how can they understand my words? What if I make a mistake and offend someone? I am afraid, I am afraid of God, for any day he could quit loving me. Is He real anyway?
Fear is the vine that grows wild and wraps around anything in its path. No matter how big or small, your fright is like a vine left unattended it gets out of control. It is our fear that causes prejudice, anger and inflated egos. Fear can be overcome by God’s word. His word is like the sun shining down on flowers, when taken in it will help you grow. It can be the root of your existence, when you meditate on his daily word the fear dissipates and the love begins to blossom. A heart filled with love does not have room for fear. When your eyes are set on God, your heart is one with His and your spirit is at peace, you can do all things through Christ even love someone who is different than you.
-Cindy Jones
Lenten reflection from Marianne Dreyspring
I came to Lent this year with my usual expectation, yearning for intimacy with Jesus. Walking through Lent with Jesus brings me an encounter with the reality of my earthly experience, both the meanness and the sweetness of it all wrapped together.
When Jesus prays in the garden to “Let this cup pass from me” I feel so close to him I would love to just hold him. What I do hold is the image of the angel with him, a strengthening presence. How comforting, not to be alone in our trials, to have support, to have grace. I am so glad that Luke’s gospel features an angel with Jesus in the garden (chapter 22, 42-46), especially since his closest friends did not stay awake to comfort him.
I love thinking of God’s grace being available especially if no other souls stay by our side when we are in our hardest experiences.
Later when Jesus cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I want to say, Yes, Lord, I have been there. Now I can believe for sure that You do know my distress, for you were there too in your earthly experience.
What would I do without Jesus. How amazing to me to have a God who would leave the comfort of heaven to have personal knowledge of what it is to be a human being. I can take absolutely anything to God. How can I thank my God for loving me that much?
-Marianne Dreyspring
Lenten reflection from Cindy Jones
Jeremiah 20: 9-11 9
But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
In reading this passage from Jeremiah I could really relate to him. Luckily I have never been denounced because of my faith and I haven’t ever denounced anyone else because of their religious beliefs. I relate to Jeremiah because of the overwhelming love he had in his heart. Even though he tried not to speak of Christ the spirit wouldn’t let him. The Holy Spirit is an amazing feeling within. There is no greater high on earth than when your heart is filled with love and joy. This love and joy is not there because you just had a new baby or met the man of your dreams. This love and joy is there just because. It is there because Christ gave his life for us, it’s there because we wanted a relationship with him and it’s there because of God’s grace; he wanted a relationship with us. There is a song that Chris Tomlin co-wrote called Our God is Greater and in this song he sings that if God is for us who could ever stop us and if God is with us who can stand against us. I carry this song with me daily because I believe it and it gives me comfort when I need it. As I close I want you to know my life is not always easy and at times it can be downright hard, but I know God is with me and he will not forsake me. I hope this Easter you can fill your heart with love and joy. Just remember for your heart to be filled it has to be opened.
-Cindy Jones