Dear Friends,

As we build the Beloved Community, we pray for you every day that you might continue to bring it about in your little corner of the world.

Today's Meditation features a reflection by Oriah Mountain Dreamer "What if there is no need to change?" It was sent to by Irene Desharnais.

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,

Ron and Jean

MEDITATION: Oriah Mountain Dreamer: "What if there is no need to change?"

What if there is no need to change?

No need to transform yourself

Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise?

How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different?

What if the task is simply to unfold

To become who you already are in your essential nature--

Gentle, compassionate,

And capable of living fully and passionately present?

What if the question is not,

Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be?

But "why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?"

How would this change what you think you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying

But by recognizing and receiving the people and place and practices

That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?

What if you know that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world

Will arise from deep within

and guide you every time you simply pay attention

And wait.

How would this shape your stillness, your movement,

Your willingness to follow this impulse

To just let go

And dance?