Active Hope
Active Hope is not about simply hoping for things to get better,
but actively taking action to create positive change.
Joanna Macy
During a post-inaugural prayer service, The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC, The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, expressed her concern about a normalized culture of contempt that threatens to destroy our country. In a subsequent interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Budde stressed the importance of being able to speak to one another with respect rather than jump to outrage. As a people of faith, we are called to serve as instruments of peace who speak the truth with love and strive to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.
To that end, the Social Justice Committee and some members of the congregation have decided to sponsor a de-escalation training to members of our interfaith community. The 4-hour workshop will be presented by IMPACT Boston Saturday, March 29, 2025, from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM. IMPACT’s effective communication workshops teach participants how to remain calm when addressing difficult issues with strangers, friends, or family and how to respond effectively to common forms of defensive behavior. This non-partisan workshop is an invaluable opportunity to learn how to have civil discourse with people whose views may differ from our own. Until then, I offer this poem…
Blessings in the Chaos
Jan Richardson
To all that is chaotic in you,
Let there come silence.
Let there be a calming of the clamoring,
a stilling of the voices that
have laid their claim on you,
that have made their home in you,
that go with you even to the holy places
but will not let you rest,
will not let you hear your life with wholeness
or feel the grace that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you cease.
Let what divides you cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes and demeans,
and let depart all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be an opening into the quiet
that lies beneath the chaos,
where you find the peace
you did not think possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
With Love, Rev. Beau