With thanks to my friend Jimmie Hawkins for the profound reminder that obedience to higher principles, values, and visions often requires disobedience to unjust and immoral laws, rules and regulations. Order Unbroken and Unbowed.
Photo: 25 June, 2022; Louisville, Kentucky
Filed under Advent, Antiracism, Current Events, Friends, Human Rights, Photo, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Designed, created, and posted by the daughter of a friend.
Let it be.
Photo: Summer, 2021; Germantown, Louisville, Kentucky
Filed under Advent, Current Events, Friends, Louisville, Photo
Walking. Germantown.
International Migrants Day.
Unite 75 – Daara J Family
Immigrant – John McCutcheon
Ave Que Emigra – Gabby Moreno
The Migrant Worker – Jim Croce
Gourma – Etran Fintawa
Take Me to Cleveland – Robert Neustadt
No Geography – The Chemical Brothers
Look in Their Eyes – David Crosby
Why We Build the Wall – Hadestown
La Jaula de Oro – Los Tigres del Norte
Alien – Gil-Scott Heron
Cages – Redbait
Bad Hombres y Mujeres – Antonio Sanchez
La Frontera – Lagartijeando, feat. Minuk
Migration – Jonny Lipford
The Dreamer – Jackson Browne
My Only Home – Unchained XL, feat. Genesis Elijah & Femi Ashiru
A Safe Place to Land – Sara Bareilles, feat. John Legend
Running – Keyon Harrold, Andrea Pizziconi & Jasson Harrold, feat. Running feat. Common & Gregory Porter
Amor Migrante – Elena & Los Fulanos
Go Tell a Bird – Maya De Vitry
Beyond the Border – Bhi Bhiman
Godspeed – Radney Foster
Where We Are – Diana Jones
Migra – Santana
Immigrant Eyes – Willie Nelson
The Immigrants – Gabby Moreno & Van Dyke Parks
Deportees – Sweet Honey in the Rock
Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) – K’naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC & Residente
Refugee King – Liz Vice, feat. Hannah Glover
No Human Is Illegal – The Wakes
Filed under Advent, Antiracism, Current Events, Exercise, Human Rights, Louisville, Music, playlist, United Nations
As the holy day approaches, a number of people are asking, “What is your favorite Christmas song?” A variation is “What non-religious holiday song that moves your spirit?
Recognizing the amazing amount of wonderful holiday music, whether intentionally religious or intentionally non-religious, that exists, I believe my answer would be the same.
Thanks to the Rev. Essie Koenig-Reinke (my daughter-in-love), pastor of Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church, here is a brief reflection on the song that is my answer. This was originally written for the church’s Advent devotional.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah 4:3b)
“My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.”
So begins ”Christmas in the Trenches” by singer-songwriter John McCutcheon, a song about the 1914 Christmas Truce told through the eyes of Tolliver, a fictional British soldier.
On Christmas Eve in the filth and muck of the trenches along World War I’s Western front, peace broke out.
Most accounts say it began with German soldiers singing Christmas carols. Others joined. And almost in a collective impulse, many German, British, and French soldiers put down their weapons and met in No-Man’s Land.
They sang, shared photos, told stories, and traded gifts from care packages. Some reports speak of makeshift soccer games played on Christmas Day.
Peace did not last as “with sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.”
The war raged until November 1918 and did not end war—wars and conflicts have followed to this day.
Still the Christmas Truce was a wondrous moment. of peace and and promise and possibility, of hope and justice.
Those themes resonate each year at the manger. They echo through Jesus’ life. He invites us to live into them—at Christmas and through the year.
May we so do.
Check out this call for a 2022 Christmas Trues in Ukraine.
Filed under Advent, Current Events, Family, Human Rights, Music
Great Spirit,
you see them,
you accompany them,
two-legged and four-legged
making their way
from Lower Brule, SD to Mankota, MN.
They ride to remember.
They ride to honor the 38 Dakota
who were hung in Mankato in 1862
and two other Dakota, who were hung in 1864.
They ride in a spirit
of peace, understanding, and forgiveness.
May the horses and the riders
and their families and supporters
know your presence
offering strength and grace,
community and perseverance,
particularly in the cold of winter.
May their effort
touch hears and minds and spirits
across this country
and lead to repentance and repair
on the part of the dominant culture.
May it be so.
Amen.
The executions resulted from the US-Dakota War of 1862. This source is the Minnesota Historical Society. A Go Fund Me page by the Dakota 38plus2 Wokiksuye Horse Ride 2022 provides information about the ride and the history behind it, including the conflict and the establishment of the ride. It offers an opportunity to support the ride and links to a vide about the ride.
Filed under Antiracism, Capital Punishment, Current Events, Death Penalty, Human Rights
If you are a faith leader, I invite you to join me in signing this call for a Christmas Truce in #Ukraine
If you do not consider yourself a faith leader, consider asking those you do view as faith leaders to join Dr. Cornel West, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bp. William Barber & many more in calling for a Christmas Truce in #Ukraine!
As people of #faith and conscience, believing in the sanctity of all life on this planet, we call for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine. In the spirit of the truce that occurred in 1914 during the First World War, as roughly 100,000 German and British soldiers along the Western Front in World War I declared an unofficial #Christmas Truce and ceased hostilities for a short period.
We urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, before the conflict results in a nuclear war that could devastate the world’s ecosystems and annihilate all of God’s creation.
We invite religious leaders or organizational/denominational leadership to add their voice to the Christmas Truce campaign by signing on here: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSe5UKB1EoxgPC…/viewform
Filed under Advent, Current Events, Human Rights
A Palestinian flag flies in a camp at Standing Rock.
A witness to solidarity.
A reminder that all struggles for justice are intertwined.
A symbol of unity.
Photo: 14 November 2016, Standing Rock, North Dakota
Filed under Antiracism, Current Events, Photo, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
God, I am angry[1] today.
I have been angry before.
I fear I will be angry again.
God, I am an angry
because of the shooting
at Club Q in Colorado Springs.
God, I am angry
on behalf of your beloved children
who were killed.
God, I am angry
on behalf family and friends
who grieve the death of individuals they loved.
God, I am angry
on behalf of your beloved children
who were wounded in body, mind, and spirit.
God, I am angry
at the hate that some people carry
and the violence it can inspire.
God, I am angry
at how your LGBTQIA+ children, made in your image,
are marginalized, harassed, discriminated against and targeted.
God, I am angry
to hear that Club Q was one of the few safe spaces for your LGBTQIA+ children.
Where the [colorful metaphor deleted] were the followers of Jesus?
God, I stand in awe and give thanks for
the patrons of Club Q
who stopped the shooter.
God, I am grateful
for first responders
who provided care to individuals in need.
God, I ask guidance and strength
for medical personnel
who will co-operate with you to bring about healing.
God, I recommit
to work to overcome hate
and to seek to address gun violence.
God, I will act,
but for today,
I am angry.
Amen.
[1] Substitute your favorite “colorful metaphor” each time “angry’ is used – or whenever you choose to express your anger more bluntly.
Filed under Current Events, Gun Violence, Prayer
Walking. Rolling hamstrings. Stretching. Gym in the Apartment.
Veterans Day. Remembrance Day. Armistice Day.
Nimrod by Elger – Royal Philharmonic ORchestra
All the Fine Young Men – Eric Bogle
1916 – Motorhead
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – The Pogues
Harry Patch – Radiohead
Paschendale – Iron Maiden
On Battleship Hill – PJ Harvey
Pipes of Peace – Paul McCartney
Soldiers – Julia Turner
The Green Fields of France – Dropkick Murphys
Blewu – Bella Bellow
Keep the Home Fires Burning – Steven Isserlis & Connie Shih
Elegy: In Memoriam Rupert Brooke – Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
In Flanders Field – Sabaton
The Last Post – Band Of The Royal Regiment Of New Zealand Artillery
Taps – United States Marine Band
Filed under Current Events, Exercise, Louisville, Music, playlist
God –
our minds stagger,
our hearts hurt,
our spirits sink
as we hear the news
of tragedy unimaginable
in the Itaewon area of Seoul.
Understanding falters,
words prove inadequate
and still we turn to you in prayer.
Comfort your children who grieve
for loved ones who died.
Work healing in your children
who are injured.
Support first responders,
medical personnel, and all who
provide care.
Guide the people of Itaewon,
of the Republic of Korea,
of the world,
as our spirits rage in anger,
and our minds flounder to process
to find appropriate responses.
Even in this time of profound grief,
perhaps especially in this time of profound grief,
help everyone – all your children – wherever we might be,
help us to love.
Amen.
Filed under Current Events, Friends, Prayer
Along the Graybeard Trail 