Notes for the Week Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost August 30 2020
Dear friends,
Last Sunday, I preached on Jesus’ question to Peter, “Who do you say that I am.” I invited you to discern who you are, your truth and who God knows you to truly be. As I well know, I have still much to learn about who I am, God knows. Maybe you feel the same way, as you consider your own perspectives on the world or, as you ask yourself, “Who am I, really.”
As one who is ready to learn more about self, perspective, personal truth and what has shaped the way one thinks, I invite you to join me on a holy journey. We are experiencing, what might be called, a pivotal year of change in many of our traditional ways of being and doing life. Indeed, we hear so much about change on so many fronts that to acknowledge that change is happening becomes almost cliché. Change isn’t easy and yet some change is for the better, and when we look back at this time, we will be able to point to positive improvements made possible in our lives through the changes that are happening now. This is especially true in the current conversation about race, gender, the preservation of respect and dignity for all persons and all sentient beings. I’m ready for a way toward change if it means we can collectively improve our perspectives about all of these.
Sacred Ground provides such a way. It allows each of us to explore the way we view race, how we view our historical perspective about race and how those perspectives might change over the years and generations to come. It is an exciting moment, a challenging moment, an introspective moment and, as we have seen, a volatile moment in our country.
Several people have already committed to take this journey with me and I would like to think there will be more. We will be together every three weeks on Wednesday evenings for conversation and will experience, I hope, revelation and insight about who we are and why, deepen our love of neighbor and, expect share some tears and laughter. This is not a series for the faint hearted, but it is not designed to deliver “shame and blame” either. I don’t want to be judged, and I’m sure you don’t either. I just want to understand more about why and how I perceive this changing world. I would like to learn and grow, and I’d love to do that feeling safely secure with people who want to do the same.
I invite you to take this journey with me
Read all about Sacred Ground on the website: The Episcopal Church
Click on Racial Reconciliation and scroll to Sacred Ground to learn all and more you need to know about this dynamic series.
https://episcopalchurch.org/racial-reconciliation
We’ll view film clips and read prepared works on our own and, grounded in faith, we will bring our personal stories, our reactions and curiosity to our Zo0m meetings. I am sure these will be enlightening, vitally dynamic meetings and, by the time we reach the end, my guess is, if only in a small way, we will each be changed.
Please, let me know you would like to join me on this holy journey,
We’ll start in two or three weeks.
We journey together,
Mother Esme+
Your word is a lantern to my feet
And a light upon my path (Psalm 119:105)
