over and around the rainbow

Inspired by the Olympics, last Sunday the postlude at Rainbow Mennonite consisted of Karen Goering Hostetler playing several measures from a number of national anthems: Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, and representing USA, she played “America the Beautiful.” Karen looked for a song that might represent the Refugee Olympic Team, but when that proved to be too difficult, she asked us to remember them as we listened.

“I hope it gives a sense of our connectedness to all nations and our hope for peace in the world,” Karen said.

You can view her 6+minute postlude here:

This coming Sunday we will pick up on this theme of homeland anthems and songs.

In preparation, I invite everyone to create a playlist of your ten most important songs. Currently, The Mennonite is featuring monthly playlists from different individuals across Mennonite Church USA reflecting on their top 10 most important songs. You can see them here: https://themennonite.org/?s=my+top+10+songs

Or consider this: A friend of mine recently collected short stories/reflections (100 words or fewer) about meaningful hymns/songs from childhood. This was a fun, yet challenging exercise. Below is what I came up with. Anybody else want to try?

I have fond memories of my parents leading us in song around the breakfast table. “Each morning brings us fresh out-poured,” they sang energetically while us kids wiped sleep out of our eyes. By the third stanza we were all singing along. I like to think that we unleashed these lovely words and notes into the universe so often in my growing up years, that they have once again found me as an adult. Now I sometimes awake in the early hours of the morning with this song on my heart (Psalm 40:3).

Hymn title: Each morning bring us
Text: Johannes Zwick
Music: Wittenbergisch Gesangbuchli, 1537

And what about at Rainbow? If we as a congregation voted on the ten most important hymns at Rainbow, which hymns would win the gold, silver, and bronze?

Finally, and going back to Karen’s consideration of the Refugee Team, what about those who are cut off from their homeland and the music therein? Furthermore, what sorts of songs speak of the refugee crisis around the world? I think of Psalm 37:1-4 (below). How might this sound put to music?

By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung up our harps.

For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

I look forward to joining in homeland songs of hope and lament this coming Sunday at Rainbow.

During the first week of August, we at Rainbow have the great honor of hosting Executive Director of Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Rev. Kristin Stoneking.

Her schedule is as follows on Wednesday, August 3:

5-6:30 pm: Young Adult potluck with Kristin at the Mennonite Voluntary Service house

7-9 pm: Community wide meet and greet reception in Kristin’s Honor in Wesley Room

In addition, Kristin will preach and preside over communion on Sunday, August 7 followed by a catered Freedom School fundraiser Brunch.

In preparation for Kristin’s visit, I encouraged church member Joshua Chittum to write a letter addressing some of his concerns, especially as it relates to current national politics. In addition to sending this to Kristin, Joshua gave me permission to share his letter here. I trust many of us will relate to Joshua’s mind tangles and questions.  “We are in a challenging time,” wrote Kristin in response, “but one of the beautiful things about it is that people are talking, people are “woke” as the saying goes to more questions about freedom and action and choice and repentance and power and peace. I look forward to carrying on the conversation next month in KC.”

Hi Rev. Stoneking,

Ruth Harder and I are having an on-going conversation about the violent state of our national politics. She suggested I send you a note. Perhaps you have some thoughts to share. Perhaps we will have opportunity to visit while you are in Kansas City.

Beyond the current demagoguery, my concern extends to the reaction of certain factions within the disorganized opposition. In the midst of the violence, I find myself perseverating on the successes of evil when the motor of the good runs idle. There is a swelling urge to move the vehicle forward by any means necessary. It can be done with or without others, by brute force or by intellect, with careful thought or animalistic reactivity. The method doesn’t matter to me; we cannot stay stuck in the road. I know I may push for no other reason than ego. I know the car may not budge no matter how loud I scream or how hard I strain. I know I could drop the delicate egg of peace and make matters worse. But we cannot stay stuck in the road; I must slow down, but slowing down can mean coming to an inadvertent stop. I want to move forward with equilibrium. Equilibrium is what I struggle with at this point in time.

Quiet/Loud: My default is to want to rise above the clamor of the agitators and the anxiety they produce. But I’m reminded of my experience teaching in the elementary classroom when students became rambunctious and loud. The most useful strategy was not to exceed their chaos, but counter it with calm. I wonder if there is space for a similar approach in a democracy as big as ours. Scale is the struggle here. In my mind, quietude denotes small. The latest nationalized fever in a long line of episodic delirium needs more than small acts. Painting the word love on the trunk of a tree is nice, but I don’t see how that is enough antibiotic to cure or weaken the disease of violence, hate, and mistrust. Is a muted response the best approach and how can it reach the vast numbers needed, including our so called enemies?

Inward/Outward: I feel called, either divinely or through the arbitrary firing of synapses, to own and monitor my thoughts and actions that are counter to a peaceful word. But when bans on Muslims becomes a rallying cry and when White Nationalists are attacked with knives by those more aligned with my politics than not, it seems the flames outside are much more pressing than the smell of burning in my own kitchen. I seek to turn outward. To make myself vulnerable. To empathize with The Other and build a better way. The flames will not extinguish themselves with one group doing all the work or one group thinking no one else is capable of participating. But the struggle is how to engage in the outward world without losing sight of internal imperfections.

Slogans/Hard Slogs:  I am ill suited for messaging in the twitter-verse age. To cleanse these historical wounds, to look at ourselves in the mirror without makeup or flattering light, to proclaim the power of peace, to elevate a better way – I don’t think a hashtag would do. But people need a tangible thing to hold, to see, to follow if they are going to engage. And getting people to stay, to feel uncomfortable, to grapple with solutions that are not clear, is the task at hand. #Prepareforthehardslog does not roll off the tongue. Do I slide backward and try to push the car forward myself?

Thank you for giving time to someone you have not met. Writing this has helped sort out tangles in my mind.

Take Care,

Joshua Chittum

Rainbow Mennonite Church (KCKS)

Sometimes I find myself in the middle of a white lie, uttering diplomatic words out of politeness, speaking well-intentioned untruths.

I know I’m not alone.

And much to my own regret and dismay I, a cisgender white woman, sometimes find myself lying to myself and others about what it means to be white in this country, and all the privileges that comes with the color of my skin.

I have so much work to do to become more awake (or woke) to the ways privilege gets manifested and perpetuated in my everyday life. Hopefully my desire to wake up does not turn into yet another well-intentioned untruth.

I know I’m not alone at Rainbow in this regard. I’ve had many conversations recently with people desiring to wake up to racial privilege and injustice. The most memorable conversation recently was with a mom of a bi-racial child. As we sat in our church nursery talking about her fears and hopes as a mother, her daughter scurried around the room playing with toys and dolls. All of a sudden it dawned on us that all the dolls in the church nursery were white-skinned, and most if not all of the stories featured white children and adults.

Waking up is sometimes hard to do.

People of color have told me that one of the most helpful things white people can do right now is to wake up to whiteness, understanding the privileges and sense of superiority, entitlement, and control that often comes with white skin. Whether or not an individual white person is guilty of acting superior or entitled is not the point. The point is that collectively, white people in America have privilege upon privilege upon privilege, and the worse part is that we are often collectively blind to it. And this I believe has to change if we truly desire a more peaceful and just future in this country for all skin colors.

During the Roots of Justice anti-racism analysis training I attended earlier this year, the trainers talked about the iceberg of racism. Too often, they said, white people focus only on the tip of the iceberg, and fail to see the bigger realities. For more, watch this 2 minute video from Mennonite training organization Roots of Justice.

Those who attended this Roots of Justice training were invited into small groups in order to share first memories of meeting someone or having a relationship with someone of a different skin color. No white lies, they said. This isn’t a time for polished, white-washed memories. This is a time for painful truth-telling.

I traveled back in time and thought of a junior high boy I had a crush on. He was black, the only black student in my class, and I wanted to be his girlfriend. Growing up in my small, rural, predominately white town, I didn’t have perspective on whether this was ok. I remember my grandpa coming to one of our track meets and saying, “I love to watch that boy run. It’s perfection.” Yes, I thought, but would my grandpa also like to see him holding hands with his granddaughter? Maybe, maybe not.

I recently invited a small group at Rainbow to converse about similar things: How did your families/guardians talk about race growing up? What are your memories (positive or negative) about encountering someone with different skin color? What were your lasting impressions (positive or negative)? And describe a recent encounter with someone of a different race that made you uncomfortable.

This kind of personal storytelling and sharing might not be for everyone and it certainly isn’t enough, only skimming the tip of the iceberg, if even that much. But it’s something, and so many black and brown lives depend on all of us doing something. 

In closing I’ll share two reading list links that I intend to spend time with in the coming weeks and months. Please join me.

A Reading List for America by Maira Liriano, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division

Black Lives Matter: A Reading List

On Tuesday, May 3 soon after his 94th birthday, John Bush joined about 180 WWII veterans and their guardians on a one-day trip to Washington, DC, to visit several war memorials and monuments sponsored by the Heartland Honor Flight Organization.

On their return to KC, the coordinators reenacted a Mail Call ritual. Unbeknownst to John, friends and family kept sending cards and notes, so much so that the coordinator looked forward to meeting John. “Mr Bush has received a good bit of mail, it’s clear he’s well regarded,” she said in an email to me.

Dear John, I’ve never been asked to participate in an event like this. Of course being at Rainbow has provided me many new experiences, for which I am grateful. Perhaps one of the most amazing aspects of being a pastor is learning to know people like you. Learning to know you, your adult children, and watching you care for your beloved Kathleen has been precious. I stand by what I said that one Sunday-when you arrive every Sunday I say to myself, “The eagle has landed. We can begin now.” Rainbow would not be the same without you. So many people would not be the same if it wasn’t for your steady encouragement, positive attitude, generous spirit, and noble sacrifices. So to that I say thank you for your life of generous service. 94 years and counting…..may this year ahead take flight with good things.

Two months later, while visiting John in the hospital, he pointed to a bright blue shirt hanging in his hospital room and said, “I hope that shirt doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.” It was his Heartland Honor Flight t-shirt. “I just assumed it was a Royals shirt, ” I said with a smile. He smiled in return.

A part of me wishes we would have talked more about what it was like to be a WWII veteran in a Mennonite Church. Did he ever feel uncomfortable, I often wondered. Then again, John wasn’t one to hold back when stating what we believed. He also wasn’t one to stop learning and listening. He was always interested in what other people thought. He was a keen observer, perched up in his chair on Sunday mornings surveying the congregation with his caring, eagle-like eyes.

I once asked John if he saw death as its own Honor Flight of sorts–yet another adventure. He said he liked that image. Of course he wasn’t one to dwell too much on images and questions pertaining to an afterlife. He seemed much more comfortable talking about his family, his friends, Rainbow Mennonite, politics, Royals, KU basketball, his hopes for a more inclusive church, and a world without hate and bigotry.

John ended most every conversation and email with, “See you Sunday.” Yes, John. See you and Kathleen on that Great Sunday when God will at last, “wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

John and Kathleen, December 2013

It was late Saturday night, or Pentecost-Eve (May 14) as I like to call it. All week I had been on the lookout for a modern-day Pentecost story—evidence that, as Molly T. Marshall writes, the Spirit of God is at work “reversing twisted forms of love that consume the good…laboring toward the liberation of all oppressed.” It was getting late, and my sermon felt a little lifeless, so I kept reading and writing. That’s when I saw an article posted on HuffingtonPost by Shane Claiborne titled “Beating Guns in Memory of Trayvon Martin,” and I immediately felt the Whoosh.  

“We,” Claiborne writes, “are going to take a 9mm pistol identical to Zimmerman’s, beat it into a plow, auction it off, and donate the money to Trayvon Martin’s family foundation.”

The “we” in this case referred to RAWtools, Inc., an organization I had not heard about until the evening of May 14. So imagine my surprise when, while scrolling through the RAWtools website for the first time, a new message appeared in my Rainbow email inbox with the subject line RAWtools Meeting: Time Sensitive

The timing was so weird; I almost didn’t open it. I’m glad I did, because it was a personal note from RAWtools Director Michael Martin:

Hi Pastor Harder, I have an urgent request. You may be familiar with George Zimmerman auctioning the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin. Shane Claiborne and us at RAWtools are creating a response by getting a surrogate gun and auctioning a tool we make from it in support of Trayvon Martin Foundation.

We have a gun donor that is able to meet us on our way to another event and we need a public space to meet him. In the past we have used parking lots at churches to plug in a saw to cut the guns to disable them. We need to do this to comply with federal guidelines. Would you, or someone at Rainbow Mennonite, be willing to meet us at the church to do this? It should take about 20 minutes. If you are unable, might you be able to refer us to another church/place which would support our cause?

Thanks for your time and peace be with you.

Michael also asked that we not announce this to the whole congregation because at that point, the gun donor wanted to remain anonymous.

I knew this wasn’t a decision a pastor should make alone, so a group of Rainbow church leaders met after worship to consider this request. After some follow-up phone conversations with Michael, we decided to go forward with this plan, taking all the safety precautions we knew to take.

It was a rainy Monday evening when Michael and his traveling mate Mary Sprunger-Froese arrived, along with the gun donor. We met in the church shed and stood in amazement as these two 9 mm pistols were disabled. It felt like we were standing on holy ground as we watched the sparks fly. Truly a Pentecost moment in my book.

You can watch the video I took here:

Michael and Mary came back to Rainbow a week later to show us what they made out of these pistols. Take a look for yourself.

Michael said that while making this particular gardening tool, someone walked away from the booth in disgust saying, “They are killing our guns!” This is such a sad commentary on what guns have become to so many people in this country.

As Michael and Mary were preparing to leave, one of our Rainbow congregants said that he was proud of the fact that Rainbow Mennonite was seen as a potential partner in this kind of peacemaking work. I couldn’t agree more.

My own thank you to Michael read as follows:

We as Mennonites seek to be faithful to our calling to teach and model the ethic of non-violence, believing this to be the stance Jesus and prophets before him taught. While it is difficult today to know how to fulfill Isaiah’s call to “beat swords into plowshares,” we applaud those who are creatively and bravely seeking to transform hatred and violence into a better purpose. We thank Shane Claiborne and RAWtools for providing us an opportunity to be partners in this work.

The Mennonite covered part of this story here.

Also, you can learn more about the auction and how to give to the Trayvon Martin Foundation here: Sow Your Ground

“Let all creation praise,” a phrase inspired by Psalm 147, will be repeated often at Rainbow. That’s because one of our current worship projects is experimenting with how to impart more meaning to outdoor spaces. A guiding question will be: How might we see and experience outdoor spaces as their own sanctuaries of sorts, calling us into greater contemplation, and stronger community? We are grateful for the $15,000 Vital Worship grant* we recently received from Calvin Institute of Worship to help us toward that end.

Perhaps this helps explain why we are having an outdoor-oriented Sunday school option this month, and why we held a Remembrance Garden Gathering on Sunday, June 5.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

These efforts are part of a larger vision to experience outdoor spaces in different, hopefully more worshipful ways over the next year. By the way, here is an aerial photo of our Rainbow green spaces (the stars mark property owned by the church).

What follows is a slideshow from the June 5 outdoor photography activity. People were encouraged to pay deeper attention to the sights, sounds, people, and structures around Whitmore Park. We were encouraged to look up, down, sideways, and upside down. Some people looked for beauty in unexpected places and others looked for visual themes or patterns. Others looked for certain shapes, the play of light and shadow, or various colors of the Rainbow. As one of our photo participants Sara Mwagura said, “I decided to search for circles from (a higher) vantage point… I honestly think I could have stayed up there all day, I was having so much fun with it. And yes, just felt challenged to pay deeper attention to the nature around.”

This Sunday, June 12, Hyattsville Mennonite Church is holding a Celebration of Welcome, focused on celebrating 30 years of being a welcoming congregation to LGBTQIA people. As stated in their June 5  bulletin, they “envision this as a time to reflect both joyfully and critically…During the worship service a choir will sing multiple songs, including one commissioned for this particular occasion, composed by Patrick Ressler and Michelle Burkholder will preach.”

In response to Hyattsville’s upcoming celebration, and in consultation with RMC Deacons, I sent the following letter on behalf of Rainbow. Writing this letter also spurred me to do some more joyful and critical reflecting on LGBTQIA welcome at Rainbow. I will share some of these reflections during worship this coming Sunday.

Dear friends of Hyattsville Mennonite Church,

Grace and peace.

We at Rainbow Mennonite Church in Kansas City, KS are with you in spirit as you mark this 30th year anniversary of seeking to be a truly inclusive congregation. The way toward inclusion has not been easy, and yet in the spirit of 1 Thessalonians, “we have been encouraged about you through your faith.” (I Thessalonians 3:6-8) May the next 30 years be full of on-going learning, joy, courage, and the companionship of many.

Occasionally at Rainbow we sing a hymn called “In the Midst of New Dimensions,” written in 1985 by an ordained Methodist minister named Julian Rush. The words are below. Rush wrote this hymn on the theme of diversity for a church conference meeting. It hints at his own struggle to be honest and open as a gay man within the Methodist church.  He experienced much rejection in the church, and yet there were always fountains in the deserts, congregations who loved and affirmed him, perhaps more importantly, he found congregations that permitted him to love and affirm them.

We have decided to sing this hymn at Rainbow on Sunday June 12 as our way of standing in spirit with you and all those who long for a day when the gifts of all will be acknowledged and received by the Mennonite church.  To quote the hymn—yes, we live in “a world divided by our own self seeking schemes,” and yet Jesus calls us to remember that our fellow human is “Each a gift in your creation, each a love song to be sung.”

May the love song that is Hyattsville Mennonite sing on.

In Christ,
Ruth Harder

“In the Midst of New Dimensions”
Words and Music by Julian Rush (1985)

In the midst of new dimensions, in the face of changing ways. Who will lead the pilgrim peoples wandering in their separate ways?

 [Refrain] God of rainbow, fiery pillar, leading where the eagles soar, We your people, ours the journey now and ever, now and ever, now and ever more.

Through the flood of starving people, warring factions and despair,Who will lift the olive branches? Who will light the flame of care?

As we stand a world divided by our own self seeking schemes, Grant that we, your global village might envision wider dreams

We are man and we are woman, all persuasions, old and young, Each a gift in your creation, each a love song to be sung.

Should the threats of dire predictions cause us to withdraw in pain, May your blazing phoenix spirit, resurrect the church again.

This stole was made by Marilyn Klaus with design help from Phyllis Carlson. It was a response to the decision made recently by Virginia Mennonite Conference to suspend Isaac’s ministerial license after he performed a same-sex wedding.

“How tall is your friend, Isaac Villegas?” asked one of our Rainbow Mennonite quilters. She wanted to know his measurements for the Rainbow stole she was making him.

The response in my head went something like: No matter Isaac’s measurements, this stole can’t be long enough. Of course I didn’t have the heart to say this. After all, she had already spent hours and hours lovingly sewing this stole.

This particular project eventually finished. And yet as I  wrapped it carefully in a box and taped it shut, I kept having the urge to open it back up again, hop in my car  and travel across the country with it, asking the quilters of every community to add their loving stitches to this stole so that it could indeed stretch on and on like a Rainbow across the Mennonite Church.

Imagine a Rainbow stole long enough to wrap around pastors who have blessed same-sex marriages, long before Isaac. Imagine a Rainbow stole long enough to wrap around pastors and church leaders who, because of their sexual identity, are continually treated as less-than human, never being allowed ministerial credentials to begin with. Imagine a Rainbow stole that could touch every person who has ever contemplated suicide, or been abused, harassed, traumatized again and again as a result of hetero-normative beliefs and values. If all the quilters in the Mennonite Church, or the world for that matter, came together to make a Rainbow stole large enough to touch each of these lives, I suspect it would still not be long enough.

Many of my clergy friends who are more accustomed to wearing stoles tell me that every time they put on their stole they remember their calling to love wholly the whole people of God. It’s not just their calling to love those who dutifully come to worship every Sunday morning or who serve on boards or committees, but it is to love those who stand on the edges, those who have been denied access to tables, pews, and pulpits, those whose voices and bodies are marginalized and oppressed again and again.

Isaac received this Rainbow stole on May 29, soon after his ministerial license was suspended.

I trust that Isaac will remember this if and when he wears this Rainbow stole. I trust Isaac knows that when we say we stand with him, our work is far from done as we all stand under the weight and pain caused by centuries upon centuries upon centuries of harmful church polities and theologies.

The stitching together of a better future continues, and sometimes this process seems painstakingly slow. But the work is really never done. This Rainbow stole is not even done, as beautiful as it is, because the work of loving wholly the people of God is never done. It goes on and on and on.

And so together with Isaac, together with Kate and Kate whose lives were recently united in marriage, together with those whose backs are weighed down with shame and hurt, together with church leaders and activists of all kinds, let’s keep imagining the Great Alpha and Omega standing with us all, stretching far and wide, without end.

The stole lining is made of Shibori, an ancient Japanese art.

Sure, we will only get glimpses of this measure-less, never-ending love, just like we only get glimpses of Rainbows. And yet it’s there, sometimes just beyond the clouds, beyond our knowing, beyond our church policies, beyond our feeble attempts at defining God. It’s there calling us to greater love.

Anyone out there up for a Rainbow stole road trip?

Read here and here for more information about the events of this last week involving Isaac, Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship, MCUSA, and Virginia Mennonite Conference.

Welcome Ministry Inquiry student Ryne Preheim!

The Ministry Inquiry Program (MIP) of Mennonite Church USA is a summer service-learning experience designed for college-age young adults to explore pastoral ministry and test their own gifts and sense of call. For 11 weeks, participants work under the supervision of a pastor and are involved in many aspects of congregational life. You can read more about this program here: MinistryInquiryProgram

We are delighted that Ryne Preheim chose Rainbow for his MIP placement. Ryne will be living at the Mennonite Voluntary Service house. He will also be traveling to Montana with the Rainbow youth trip June 4-12. If you would like to welcome him to Rainbow or better  yet, if you want to show him your favorite places around KC, you can do so by emailing him at rynelpreheim@bethelks.edu

What follows is an introduction from Ryne:

Hey everyone, I’m Ryne and I am quite excited to be spending the summer here at Rainbow! The first thing I always have to tell people is how to pronounce my name, it’s like Rhino without the “o”, don’t worry about getting it wrong the first couple of times, everyone gets it eventually. I’m currently a sophomore at Bethel College where I am majoring in Communication Arts with an emphasis in theatre and broadcasting. At Bethel, I participate in many different activities, I’m a member of the concert choir, I am a theatre scholarship holder, I’m a member of the new diversity council as well as the president of the campus Gay Straight Alliance and I play golf!

While much of my life centers around the great state of Kansas, I’m actually from out of state. I grew up in Reedley, California, a small farming community about thirty miles outside of Fresno. I have two loving parents Paul and Candi as well as three younger sisters Mallory, Courtney and Hayley. I like to think that I’ve gotten accustomed to the great state of Kansas, but that being said, you will see me do the following things more than once. I will wear flip flops with jeans. I will struggle to open an umbrella. I will say dinner instead of supper and soda instead of pop. I will occasionally utter the phrase “bro” and last, but certainly not least, I will complain about the humidity. Thanks everyone for opening up your congregation to me and I am looking forward to meeting all of you!

On May 14, Je T’aime Taylor demonstrated great courage when she invited friends and family to join her in an act of communal remembering, grieving, and honoring of her stillborn son Adisa Baraka Osayande-Taylor.  As one of her friends put it, “Too many men and women have suffered in silence following the death of a child or loss of a pregnancy.”

Je T’aime invited me to share a few words during this ceremony, and then gave me permission to share them here. I’d also encourage you to read the beautiful poem shared and written by KC poet Natasha Ria El-Scari by clicking here: Mother Poem for Jetaime POEM 2016

________

Je T’aime and I were basketball teammates in college. After Christmas break one year, I remember rushing over to her in order to give her a bear hug and perhaps even a kiss on the cheek. What I didn’t know is that she had just had her wisdom teeth pulled.

That memory surfaced for me because I think all of us here today are eager to show our love, and we hope to do it in a way that doesn’t add to the pain. And so we stumble around not always knowing what to say or not say, knowing that nothing we can say or do can take away the pain caused by the death of a loved one.

When I think back to the day you went into labor, I remember feeling excited. I looked forward to holding your beloved son. And then the text came from your sister Tiffany: “Please pray for my sister.” And then the news: “The baby didn’t make it.” In the hours and days that followed people lit candles, prayed, asked questions (lots of questions), shed tears, yelled, and we all struggled to know what to say.

It felt like a gift to spend a little time with you in the hospital after Adisa was delivered. I brought along some anointing oil. (Sometimes when there are very few words, there is the power of touch.) When I offered to anoint Je T’aime, she gladly accepted. I remember drawing a circle on her forehead and saying: “Love encircle you in body, spirit, and mind.” I drew a circle because I felt so strongly the circle of sisterhood and friendship. I felt this great company of friends and family encircling you and Adisa. And I thought of the sacred circle that is the womb. Though your time together was short, it is a bond, a circle of love that has no end.

I then asked if you wanted to anoint Adisa and you gladly took the oil. As I watched you, I thought of the words from Psalm 139: For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Many poets throughout time have imagined God as a great womb. Consider for example these words from the hymn, O God, great womb:

O God, great womb of wondrous love, your Spirit moving on the deep did wake a world within yourself, a pulsing, lighted world, from sleep.

O hearth, O heartbeat of the whole, your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years, the ages’ rhythms and the rhymes

O silent soul, O mind and strength, your center did conceive and bear its image-self- two human forms, one breath to share.

The final stanza of this hymn acknowledges that as beautiful as this Divine womb is, we still groan.

Now come with rest O Sabbath sun, O sanctuary, sacred home, we groan till all is grown complete, fulfilled at peace, O great shalom.

Je T’aime, we groan with you. We mourn with you. And we hope to continue to grow alongside you. We seek to be your fellow travelers on this way toward sacred home, where all is at rest, where pain and death are no more within the Greatest of Wombs.

Adisa did not make it and yet, he will continue to make you who you are and who you become. God will continue to make you, forming who you will yet become. May the Great Spirit continue to make Herself known to you/us, encircling us all in body, mind, and spirit.