#accompany me

I have been thinking this last year about building new kinds of community. One theme is the importance of organizations where we feel we belong. But another theme is how might we get away from the pressure our culture puts on us to be independent, either as an individual or as a couple.

After the election, when many vulnerable people feel so much more at risk, I wear a safety pin to say that I will walk with you or accompany you to the bathroom if you feel unsafe. But I would like to see this not as protecting the weak, but as a commitment to community, to being there for each other. How do we build communities where we can all show our vulnerabilities and be seen and valued?

I want to experiment with the idea of seeking someone to accompany me when I have a lonely task. We understand this already with difficult medical appointments, and we seek someone to accompany us. But could it be something we do more often, as a way of spending time with friends and as a way of not feeling so alone? I've posted on Facebook where friends will see that I am looking for someone to help me clear out and sort the papers in my husband's aunt's safe deposit box tomorrow. (She was obsessive about what she saw as important papers.)

The Advent meditation I am following gives this verse for today, from Matthew 24:31:

And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

The featured meditation yesterday talked about the communion of struggle. How do we commit to valuing all lives? We do that by political work, but we also do that by building community where we know each other more deeply and admit that we are all vulnerable.

So what to do with those angels and their trumpets?  My first reaction is that we need to save ourselves, together, not wait for angels with trumpets to replace this world with a better one. I think that is more in the spirit of the word prompt: STFU.  But in the spirit of Advent when the Messiah is both coming and already here, we also need to understand that we are gathered, here and now, and that the people we don't want to see are part of the elect are with us as well. What steps can we take, in our lives as they are now, to make our communities more open and more supportive? We need that to get through the harsher times that are coming politically.

a prayer I wrote for Advent

Prayer 

  

This Advent, as we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for all the troubles of the world.

  That the arc of history may bend towards peace.

As we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for the leaders of our nation and of all nations.

  That the arc of history may bend towards justice.

As we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for the leaders of all faiths.

  That they will be part of bending the arc of history towards hope.

As we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for our community in Clemson and the Upstate.

  That the arc of history may bend towards caring for each other.

As we prepare for the incarnation, we are grateful for all with which we have been blessed.

  That the arc of history may bend towards joy.

As we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for all who are hurting and struggling.

  That the arc of all our lives may bend towards love. 

As we prepare for the incarnation, we pray for all who have died.

  We entrust them to the arc of God’s love.

[closing collect from the prayer book]
Dear God, accept the fervent prayers of your people; in the multitude of your mercies, look with compassion upon us and all who turn to you for help; for you are gracious, O lover of souls, and to you we give glory, Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.