Dear Beloved Earthlings,
We mourn the tragedy and collective evil that dropped the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima Japan 75 years ago today. We pray for all who have suffered and we pray for our enemies who inflict suffering. We pray to be able to rid ourselves of the violence in our own hearts and in our own country that spends 53 cents of every tax dollar on weapons of mass destruction and our addiction to the war economy.
Dear God, We come heart sick with death, racism, poverty, cruelty and torture, war and the threat of nuclear holocaust and ecologic catastrophe all around. We beg you to hear our prayers. HELP US as a human family to learn ways of peace, love and justice. We want to love you, our earth and all your creatures. We are rattling your cage God, come out of hiding and show us the way! We have never needed you more! HELP US, find a way out of no way. Amen
Church for Our Common Home offers a three month series -"Non Violence for the Violent, Women Mystics, Jesus' Third Way and the Earth" every Sunday on Zoom at 5 pm PST for August, September and October we will celebrate women mystics from history including Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene as well as Jesus' teachings about non-violence with Walter Wink as our guide. "...To recognize our own inner violence is one the hardest things we must do if we are to become non-violent. I once tried to eradicate violence from my heart but when I took a long look at the violence and rage within me, I thought I had a tremendous amount of work to do. If we can't deal with our own personal violence how can we expect to deal with the violence of nations." (Walter Wink)
We will also celebrate modern, living women who are bursting forth as wisdom teachers beginning with Lehmah Gbowee, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Liberia who led women in her nation in a non violent revolution over throwing Charles Taylor one of the worst dictators of modern times. She tells the truth about her personal life including being a trauma survivor of domestic violence, her encounters with God, dreams and being lead by the Holy Spirit. Her inspiring personal story and triumphant story of the people of Liberia is shared in her powerful memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers; How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War.
Lehmah Gbowee brought Christian and Muslim women together in prayer, We will begin our series on nonviolence and The Third Way in prayer for as Wink writes, "Praying is rattling God's cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God's hands and the manacles off God's feet and washing the caked sweat from God's eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes. When we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory center of power that radiates the power of the universe. History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercessions we veritably cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being." (The Powers That Be)
Please bring olive oil or any kind of liquid for an anointing ritual.
Recently, I had a dream about Walter Wink and it felt as if he was giving me his blessing from the other side to teach Jesus Third Way infused with Hildegard's Greening Power of God in Nature. In my dream Walter Wink gave me a purple velvet bag filled with several bottles of anointing oils. One of them was a small bottle of anointing oil that had been turned green with green coloring. May our worship, prayers and study of the teachings of Jesus be a green anointing of the spirit for us as we come to co-create with God, to love the nature spirits and Mother Earth and with all our souls, heart and mind and every creature as an extension of ourselves.
August 9th, Matthew 5:38-42 Green Anointing for Jesus Third Way We will begin our three month series on Jesus' Third Way summoning the spirits of Walter Wink, Hildegard of Bingen and Leymay Gbowee. We will pray for those who were killed and all those who suffered and for the moral redemption of the American Empire that dropped nuclear bombs on Japan 75 years ago.
August 16th Matthew 14:13-21 Findhorn, Loaves and Fishes and Radical Revolution Jesus created an abundance of food for everyone and so did those working with nature sprits in Findhorn, who prayed and grew cabbages as big as cars. This worship will explore prayer and spiritual ecological communities and the vision of Church for Our Common Home. We will honor Mother Mary and all women who give us life. The Earth body and women's bodies have been left out and we will love them back to the table. Holy Communion will be served. Please bring your own bread and juice.
Join us as we "believe the future into being" and co-create with God and Mother Earth a paradise of peace and love. Sending love,
Rev. Bonnie Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President UUSCM www.uuscm.org Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD