Curations: Opportunity to Testify

Even though it is the day after the midterms, I would like to share this poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes - written the day before - from his website, Unfolding Light.

The poem is based on the lectionary passage for this coming Sunday (which you will hear if you join us in worship at 10:30 am...just saying...), in which Jesus speaks of the destruction of the Temple and wars and earthquakes and persecution. And yet there is the promise of God's faithfulness in the midst of all of these things. And not only that, but "an opportunity to testify."

Regardless of election outcomes, to what can you bear witness in the coming days? How might your life become a testimony of God's faithfulness and love?

- GJD

"Opportunity to Testify" by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

“As for these things that you see,

the days will come

when not one stone will be left upon another;

all will be thrown down.”

—Luke 21.6

On the eve of a precipitous election

I hear these words with renewed attention.

The destruction of the temple. A changed world.

A dangerous world. The loss of what we count on.

“Wars and insurrections…nation against nation..

arrest and persecution…” “This,” Jesus says,

“will give you an opportunity to testify.”

When things get dark and dangerous

we shine with light. We speak the truth.

We embody resurrection. We bear witness.

Not just with slogans, but with our lives.

Lives lived in subversive love,

with traitorous gentleness and radical courage

in countercultural forgiveness and illegal mercy.

The Empires of this world will always oppose

the Empire of God. Always. But our true belonging,

is in that Realm of Love; and it is eternal.

In the spirit of the Crucified and Risen One,

who is with us always,

we will persist.