Last Sunday I closed our worship service with this short poem from Dawna Markova:
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
In these troubled times I have been giving a great deal of thought as to what it means to live a full life. I begin by recognizing that all of us will die incomplete. We will never finish all of our dreams, nor heal all of our wounds. However, I do believe that we can enter into these days with courage and intentionality.
One woman I heard about vowed to do one act of justice in the days after Donald Trump was elected. Even with kids to put to bed and exams to grade, she would review her day for that one act of justice. Often, late at night, she would call up an elected official who she knew did not share her values and leave a voicemail in support of some legislation. She knew full well that her message would not reach her representative, but she did know a staffer would make note of it.
Sometimes the best we can do is stand witness for what is good and right and true. The cause need not be political — send a card to a friend in need, volunteer for the church, tend a community garden — all of these are courageous acts of intention. What I have learned is that we are more powerful than we think, especially in numbers greater than one.
Perhaps you won’t change the world, but in acting with intention and courage, you will change yourself, and that alone may move us from seed to blossom to fruit.
Yours Always, Rev. John