Hope in the Dark

April 29, 2022

Marcie Alvis Walker

Apr 29, 2022

Faith Ringgold – Tar Beach Woodcut (1993)

INVOCATION

Spirit, enlighten us.

EPIPHANY

Hope is an embrace of the unknown and knowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

A WORD OF HOPE

The most tender revelation I’ve had of late is that those who I most admire and whose lives have most encouraged and emboldened me to keep hope alive never got to see the the full reach of their work or the depth of their influence on society.

You and I may never know how what we do will ultimately matter. We may never know how what we do impacts future generations.

So may whatever we do have a positive impact on a great diversity of people who hold the least amount of resources. May what we do not shatter their shelter. May our impact be a foundation upon which those with the least can plant and build.

COVENANT PRAYER

by Cláudio Carvalhaes based on the Traditional Wesleyan Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own.
I stand now with God’s people.
Join me in solidarity with others.

Let us take action.
Let us wait in silence.
Let us confront oppression.
Let us mourn what is lost.
Let us succeed in our struggles.
Let us share God’s suffering.
Let us dream new visions.
Let us renounce old ways.

We freely and wholeheartedly commit our lives to this service.

Living God,
we share your wounds
and see your glory.
Let it be this way.

And may this covenant
now made on earth, be ratified
in the world that is to come.

Amen.

BENEDICTION

by Dawn Grace Peters

May God’s peace rest upon us. May God’s great love reach to every heart. May we always sense God’s care among us, so that we find the good of one another and never doubt the goodness of God.

Go in peace.

Amen