Post-Election Invitation
Impromptu Zoom gathering tonight
I woke up this morning in the four o’clock hour, in a state somewhere between bleary and apprehensive. The news did not feel good.
Some of you may be feeling apprehensive now, having woken up this morning to the news you hoped for today, and not wanting yet another disappointed person showing up in your inbox. That’s okay. I understand that, and now is probably a good time to say this post isn’t intended for you. I hope you have good people in your life with whom you can rejoice. This is for the people who are not rejoicing today and are struggling to not feel alone in their sadness.
My dear friend
and I have had similar trajectories, raised in homes with conservative politics, a kind of a nationalism adopted by Christians, conspiracy theories about the end times, and more. Our upbringings have brought us into friendship with one another but it’s also brought us into a certainty that showing up in these spaces—what Sara calls Nervous Systems—with a non-anxious presence is God’s call on our lives.This morning in the shower, as I tried to scrub the sad off of me, I remembered so many of you who are feeling so much of the same sad today. Perhaps anger. Grief. Maybe worse. And I thought there’s so little I can do about that, but I thought what if Sara and I offered up a little time today to create a communal space of sorts where those feelings could just be recognized and had others bear witness to them?
Tonight at 7pm eastern time, 4pm pacific time, we’ll be doing a little Zoom call that you’re invited to attend. There will be some space for silence, a prayer, some (timed1) sharing, and perhaps some more. It will only be about an hour. We hope you can join. Perhaps put a candle by you to light so we can do that together.
Our friend Phaedra shared this Nouwen quote on Instagram yesterday and we thought it would be a good piece to meditate on today in preparation for our time together:
“Hope is not dependent on peace in the land, justice in the world, and success in the business. Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God’s guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. No one can truly say with certainty where he or she will be ten or twenty years from now. You do not know if you will be free or in captivity, if you will be honored or despised, if you will have many friends or few, if you will be liked or rejected. But when you hold lightly these dreams and fears, you can be open to receive every day as a new day and to live your life as a unique expression of God’s love for humankind. There is an old expression that says, “As long as there is life there is hope.” As Christians we also say, “As long as there is hope there is life”
-Henri J.M. Nouwen
Here is the Zoom invitation. Please note the password.
Lore Wilbert is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Lore Wilbert's Zoom Meeting
Time: Nov 6, 2024 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 827 2258 1687
Passcode: 257364
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Sara and I are a big fan of gentle timed sharing—a practice we use in our small writers group when we gather together yearly. It has borne such good fruit in us to limit our sharing and prime our listening.
 | A guest post by
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Thank you all for being there. I didn't realize there was a cap on the number of participants Zoom would let in above 100 and heard from so many of you that you couldn't get in. I'm so sorry, truly! Here is the liturgy and the poem we shared:
A liturgy for when the news is bad, From Every Moment Holy, volume II, Douglas McKelvey
God, my Rock, fortress, and eternal foundation,
Be present in this first moment of my fear,
For the footings of my life as I’ve known it
Are shaken. Unwelcome news has tilted
The world suddenly, robbing me of balance
And bearing, casting all plans for pleasant
Futures in a wavering light
O God Who Fights for Me,
Be present in this first confusion.
Be present in this first uncertain distress.
Be present in my passage through denial,
Anger, frustration, and fear.
Shepherd me through every anxiety as I—
And all who love me—seek to absorb this blow.
Be near in ways that I can sense and know.
Convince me of your care. Be my everlasting
Rock, my unassailable fortress, my fierce
Defender. Steady the spinning of my world.
Amen.
The Peace of the Wild things, Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
I'm from Romania, Europe, so I can't say I share completely in your feelings as USA citizens. But I do share in what you feel about the need for hope in uncertainty or times of trouble.
At the time of your zoom meeting I'll probably be asleep, but know that I am saying a prayer now, for all of you who are trying to believe inspite all odds.🙏🏻
Faith's eyes are like the eyes of God - they see beyond evidence. 👀
Thank you so much for Nowen's quote, Lore.♥️ I saved it.
I leave you with these words:
"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!" 1 Chorinthians 13:12 (The Message Bible)
God bless you all, friends!🤗