Justice
Press on with Yet More Courage
Jun. 18, 2025 13:33 Filed in: Commentaries
Friends,
Here is the prayer we opened our worship service with on Sunday.
God of shalom, we lift up this city and state and country.
We are awash in fear and hatred and violence, and we long for the healing and hope and justice only you can offer.
We pray for Melissa and Mark Hortman; receive them into the arms of your mercy.
We pray for John and Yvette Hoffman and their daughter, that they will be filled with the healing power of the Holy Spirit, that they may be able to recover and be raised up as signs of your love for the world.
We pray for the person who did these acts of violence, that he too will know the healing power of your justice.
We pray for all those tempted to violence, and for those who stoke the flames of hatred, that their hearts will be turned to your way of love.
And we pray for those who serve in positions of public trust in our legislature and everywhere, that in the midst of such fear, your love will give them the courage to continue in their duties with integrity and to press on with yet more courage toward your dream of love for this hurting world.
We ask all this in the name of the One whose way calls us to resilient, defiant, embodied, joyful love, even and especially in the midst of grief and destruction, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I hope to see you this coming Sunday, June 22, when we celebrate Campus Ministry Sunday. With a sermon from Steve Mullaney (Chaplain and Executive Director of the University Episcopal Community), we'll wonder together how our baptismal promises call us to support young adults in all kinds of life transitions.
See you in church!
Susan+
Here is the prayer we opened our worship service with on Sunday.
God of shalom, we lift up this city and state and country.
We are awash in fear and hatred and violence, and we long for the healing and hope and justice only you can offer.
We pray for Melissa and Mark Hortman; receive them into the arms of your mercy.
We pray for John and Yvette Hoffman and their daughter, that they will be filled with the healing power of the Holy Spirit, that they may be able to recover and be raised up as signs of your love for the world.
We pray for the person who did these acts of violence, that he too will know the healing power of your justice.
We pray for all those tempted to violence, and for those who stoke the flames of hatred, that their hearts will be turned to your way of love.
And we pray for those who serve in positions of public trust in our legislature and everywhere, that in the midst of such fear, your love will give them the courage to continue in their duties with integrity and to press on with yet more courage toward your dream of love for this hurting world.
We ask all this in the name of the One whose way calls us to resilient, defiant, embodied, joyful love, even and especially in the midst of grief and destruction, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I hope to see you this coming Sunday, June 22, when we celebrate Campus Ministry Sunday. With a sermon from Steve Mullaney (Chaplain and Executive Director of the University Episcopal Community), we'll wonder together how our baptismal promises call us to support young adults in all kinds of life transitions.
See you in church!
Susan+
Reflections on the Racial Justice and Healing Retreat
May. 20, 2025 10:16 Filed in: Commentaries
By Meghan and Vicky
Vicky and Meghan are members of Grace Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, close friends, as well as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Together they attended the racial justice and healing retreat at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Paul on March 22, 2025
Vicky: For 35 years, I was an educator in the K-12 world and an adjunct professor of education at a local university. The last 12 years, as a teacher, professor, school district administrator, and education consultant, the collective focus was on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for all students. Witnessing what continues to unfold since the presidential executive orders around DEI has been devastating for all who believe the strength of our society lies in our diversity. When I read in our Sunday church bulletin about the opportunity to attend the Racial Justice and Healing Retreat, my heart leapt. "Maybe," I hoped, "I will find a source of balm for my heartbroken soul."
Meghan: In our beautifully diverse world, I've developed a deep understanding of racial and identity development and transformative justice practices through my work as an academic advisor in a college setting. I was drawn to this retreat to experience racial healing and justice from a Christian perspective and to answer the questions, "How does God view justice?" and "How are we called to respond to God's call to justice?" I also wanted to be in community with other believers who were focused on a shared mission and vision of seeking to take action to make a more equitable, inclusive world.
Vicky: What I saw and experienced at the retreat was far more than a "balm" for my troubled heart. Every moment from when I walked through the doors of Holy Trinity Church that morning to the closing eucharist at the end of the day was an immersion into the "beloved community." This phrase, "beloved community," gets a lot of use and attention, particularly in spaces focused on racial justice and immigration. But what does "beloved community" really mean?
The beloved community is a place without physical walls. Instead, it is defined by the people who gather there. It is a spiritual place where differences in theology and individual experiences fade, while at the same time, a binding together by God through the Holy Spirit resides. It is a relational space where culture and color are no longer barriers, and it's replaced by a sincere desire to know and understand each other. Finally, it is a place that stirs the individual to action, to bring this deepened awareness to our broken world, and being open to the Holy Spirit for direction and courage. That is what I experienced at the Racial Justice and Healing Retreat.
Meghan: What was most striking and profoundly meaningful to me were the experiences of encountering the Holy Spirit and using a justice-focused lens.
Through one particular Bible reading from the Book of Isaiah, I encountered the spirit in two unique ways: In connection of the spirit through the retreat group, and a personal calling to the diaconate made clear through the reading. At the beginning of the retreat, we read as a group the reading aloud. It was already clear that the spirit was "moving and shaking" by connecting us. We were asked to share a word or phrase that resonated strongly with us. Vicky and I uttered the same phrase one after the other of "your light shall rise in the darkness." At the end two people vocalized at the same time, "Then your light shall break forth like the dawn." The church space audibly reacted. As I read through this reading again later, I felt the Holy Spirit "hitting me" with a message to pursue a calling to be a deacon, which I am actively pursuing with my rector and the diocese.
Experiencing a justice-focused church service and reading Bible verses from this perspective was profoundly meaningful to me. It was the most incredible church service I had ever been a part of and using this perspective to interpret scripture "broke open" the Bible for me in a way that I had never thirsted for before. I am not a person who usually wants to "crack open" my Bible, yet this retreat left me with an electrifying need to know and encounter God more, and an escalating desire to take personal and collective action towards justice (even more than before).
Vicky: Have the politics around DEI changed? No, they have intensified. However, nothing, including the powers that be, can diminish the "beloved community." Bishop Loya said it best, through his most recent weekly letter:
"What Jesus both promises and expects of us is not to escape from it, but to keep casting into new places, in new ways, so that we can join God in drawing the whole world into the net of God's liberating life, shouting our joyful and defiant alleluia to all the forces that break down the children God so cherishes, and longs to hold."
Vicky and Meghan are members of Grace Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, close friends, as well as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Together they attended the racial justice and healing retreat at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Paul on March 22, 2025
Vicky: For 35 years, I was an educator in the K-12 world and an adjunct professor of education at a local university. The last 12 years, as a teacher, professor, school district administrator, and education consultant, the collective focus was on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for all students. Witnessing what continues to unfold since the presidential executive orders around DEI has been devastating for all who believe the strength of our society lies in our diversity. When I read in our Sunday church bulletin about the opportunity to attend the Racial Justice and Healing Retreat, my heart leapt. "Maybe," I hoped, "I will find a source of balm for my heartbroken soul."
Meghan: In our beautifully diverse world, I've developed a deep understanding of racial and identity development and transformative justice practices through my work as an academic advisor in a college setting. I was drawn to this retreat to experience racial healing and justice from a Christian perspective and to answer the questions, "How does God view justice?" and "How are we called to respond to God's call to justice?" I also wanted to be in community with other believers who were focused on a shared mission and vision of seeking to take action to make a more equitable, inclusive world.
Vicky: What I saw and experienced at the retreat was far more than a "balm" for my troubled heart. Every moment from when I walked through the doors of Holy Trinity Church that morning to the closing eucharist at the end of the day was an immersion into the "beloved community." This phrase, "beloved community," gets a lot of use and attention, particularly in spaces focused on racial justice and immigration. But what does "beloved community" really mean?
The beloved community is a place without physical walls. Instead, it is defined by the people who gather there. It is a spiritual place where differences in theology and individual experiences fade, while at the same time, a binding together by God through the Holy Spirit resides. It is a relational space where culture and color are no longer barriers, and it's replaced by a sincere desire to know and understand each other. Finally, it is a place that stirs the individual to action, to bring this deepened awareness to our broken world, and being open to the Holy Spirit for direction and courage. That is what I experienced at the Racial Justice and Healing Retreat.
Meghan: What was most striking and profoundly meaningful to me were the experiences of encountering the Holy Spirit and using a justice-focused lens.
Through one particular Bible reading from the Book of Isaiah, I encountered the spirit in two unique ways: In connection of the spirit through the retreat group, and a personal calling to the diaconate made clear through the reading. At the beginning of the retreat, we read as a group the reading aloud. It was already clear that the spirit was "moving and shaking" by connecting us. We were asked to share a word or phrase that resonated strongly with us. Vicky and I uttered the same phrase one after the other of "your light shall rise in the darkness." At the end two people vocalized at the same time, "Then your light shall break forth like the dawn." The church space audibly reacted. As I read through this reading again later, I felt the Holy Spirit "hitting me" with a message to pursue a calling to be a deacon, which I am actively pursuing with my rector and the diocese.
Experiencing a justice-focused church service and reading Bible verses from this perspective was profoundly meaningful to me. It was the most incredible church service I had ever been a part of and using this perspective to interpret scripture "broke open" the Bible for me in a way that I had never thirsted for before. I am not a person who usually wants to "crack open" my Bible, yet this retreat left me with an electrifying need to know and encounter God more, and an escalating desire to take personal and collective action towards justice (even more than before).
Vicky: Have the politics around DEI changed? No, they have intensified. However, nothing, including the powers that be, can diminish the "beloved community." Bishop Loya said it best, through his most recent weekly letter:
"What Jesus both promises and expects of us is not to escape from it, but to keep casting into new places, in new ways, so that we can join God in drawing the whole world into the net of God's liberating life, shouting our joyful and defiant alleluia to all the forces that break down the children God so cherishes, and longs to hold."