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Leaders' Blog

Leader’s Message – Social Justice Call & Response – January 2015

By February 21, 2015No Comments

As the Humanist representative at interfaith vigils, I am often called upon to speak. Sometimes I reflect upon the person or situation, but I recently found a poem by Rebecca Parker that I revised as a call and response. It affirms the responsibility to use one’s gifts to serve humanity

 Social Justice Call & Response

“Choose to Bless the World” adapted from a poem Rebecca Parker

Your gifts—whatever you discover them to be—

can be used to bless or curse the world.

Choose to Bless the World

The mind’s power,

The strength of the hands,

The reaches of the heart,

Choose to Bless the World

Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,

Bind up wounds,

Welcome the stranger,

Praise what is sacred,

Do the work of justice

Or offer love.

Choose to Bless the World

Any of these can draw down the prison door,

Hoard bread,

Abandon the poor,

Obscure what is holy,

Comply with injustice

Or withhold love.

Choose to Bless the World

You must answer this question:

What will you do with your gifts?

Choose to bless the world.

The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,

A moving forward into the world

With the intention to do good.

It is an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment

That in the midst of a broken world

Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.

Choose to Bless the World

None of us alone can save the world.

Together—that is another possibility waiting.

 

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