Every Tuesday, the clergy of the Bay District meet via Zoom with our District Superintendent, Staci Current. This week, the meeting ladened heavily with sorrow and anger at the events of this past week—the killing of George Floyd by a police officer and the violence and anger that has followed. Whatever thin veneer that has covered the racism realities of our country has been ripped away and we are left gasping. We spent 8 minutes and 46 seconds in silence—the same length of time the officer held down Mr. George, even minutes after he had stopped breathing. Try it—it’s not an easy silence. Either the length of time or the experience itself. How we move forward as a country is a deep unknown. How do we move forward as a congregation in this reality? We will each need to have serious conversations with ourselves and our families about what we can and will do. As a congregation, I hope to have a Zoom “town meeting” in 2 weeks. The first reason is to talk about the physical return to worship together and to begin just sharing our own thoughts and feelings about current events. Another place we can address this is in worship.
This Sunday, we begin an 8-10 part series on joy, “The Joy Project,” based on the book about conversations with the Dhali Lama and Desmond Tutu. At first I thought, “we need to change gears and talk about justice, racism, etc. Who can focus on joy in times like this?” Then, I came across this from The Book of Joy: “What does our joy have to do with addressing the suffering of the world? The more we heal our own pain the more we can turn to the pain of others. The goal is to not just create joy for ourselves but to be as Archbishop Tutu says, “ reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity that can ripple out to all those around you. We cannot bring peace if we do not have inner peace. We cannot hope to make the world a better, happier place if we do not also aspire for this in our own lives.” So on Sundays this summer, in worship, we will do both. Focus on developing deep joy (which is not happiness-tune in this Sunday to learn about the difference) within so that we may turn our joy into justice and action. It’s both a balance and dialectic and no clear easy path. However, it is our calling as Christ’s own. I treasure sharing all of this with you.
Peace,
Pastor Kim
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