Dear Friends,

 We pray for you a Happy and Blessed New Year!

 Today's Meditation features Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer helping MLK's message and mission to echo today.

We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.

In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.

We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!

With our love and care,

Jean and Ron

MEDITATION: Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer help MLK echo

MLK Day Thoughts

Honoring The Shoulders We Stand Upon, Continuing The Song

CARRIE NEWCOMER

JAN 16

SAVE

— Parker J. Palmer

MLK Day is a celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But it is also a day to remember that we still have dream of a world that is better, kinder with safety and justice for all.

May we all take a moment today to appreciate the work of all those who have come before, the shoulders we stand upon with gratitude and inspiration.

But what I sense, is that to truly honor the work done before us, we must pick up the thread and keep singing, to build upon their work in large and small, daily ways. Love more truly and lift our voices, brave what pushes back.

Hope is not something gossamer or ephemeral. Hope is not just positive or wishful thinking. Hope is getting up in the morning and trying again, in our own way, within our own sphere of influence, to make the world a little better, a little kinder, a more joyous, more just, true and decent place. Some days living into active hope is harder than others, and so we remind one another, create places of support and sanctuary. And then, the next morning....we get up and do it again.

And so we living into active hope…because if not now…when?

QUESTION

What does living into daily hope look like for you? What has supported hope in the past, and are those things still available to you today?