How the light gets in

Daily Devotion - June 2

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Today I participated in a clergy march. Led by black pastors, bishops, rabbis and imams, we walked through the streets to where George Floyd was killed.  Five minutes after we started, the hands in the front went up and a great silence spread through the whole crowd. The only sound was our feet, punctuated by noises from beyond - car horns, onlookers, birds.  But amongst the moving crowd, a prayer, no words, just palpable, holy silence. It is hard to even explain what three blocks of masked people walking, completely silent, feels like. The silence was the loudest thing around - it touched those we passed, causing them to fall silent too.

Twice more a wave came through the crowd. Once when everyone fell to their knees as someone up front prayed.  And then before we rose, the Lord's Prayer came through, building in volume, so that by the time it reached us we joined in one great voice saying "...deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever, Amen."

This morning a few of us gathered for coffee and support.  The stress and tension are wearing. Nights are hard; mornings are welcome. We are tired and on edge, mostly tired of being on edge.  But also, among us were a new job, a new engagement, a new lease on life after a hospital release, a lost child found, a daycare resuming soon - glimpses of hope and life.

Here are more reports from among us:

Sue's little garden of hope:
This is my little garden of hope, valiantly growing in my parking lot: the only place with enough sun except, maybe, for the bus stop out front!
A quiet night. Scary troops in vehicles moseying by the house. I DO have a visceral reaction to the presence of the National Guard, based on my experience in the 1960's. But their work has been generally calm and measured. But it is still a scary sight.
They are protecting the sacred memorial space at 38th and Chicago, where George died. People gather there around the clock, grieving with one another. The pain and anger take some into the zone far beyond hope, into such deep mourning and frustration over this senseless death that they cannot see a way out.
I choose hope. I am realistic, though. The systemic problems are hundreds of years deep and human nature much deeper. It is hard to trust one another and even harder to trust our institutions. The targeted destruction of the neighborhood services: food, pharmacy, low income housing: has increased the distrust as peaceful protesters feel targeted by outrage over damage they did not do. Many cannot yet chose hope.
But people, from within and without of Minneapolis are donating food, money, time to the clean up. They chose hope.
Many neighborhoods are taking turns guarding the businesses that provide for their needs. They are choosing hope.
Solutions will come gradually. Most will not work, none will reach perfection. But we must still join together and work hopefully toward a more just society. Three steps forward and two steps back, is still one step forward.
Hope is such a fragile thing, like spring peas and tiny carrots. Tiny, unlikely shoots of green life. It must be looked for and nurtured.

And this message from Lisa's favorite pie shop, Pie and Mighty:
 

It might not look like it, but this is Pie & Mighty. Last week, in the wee hours of Saturday morning our front door got kicked in. You don't need us to tell you why.

We've have had an extrordinary start to our little space on Chicago Avenue. We sliced and served our first pies from our new location just 12 weeks ago, on March 14, Pi Day. Ours has been a long journey full of fits and starts and hiccups, but we wouldn't trade one moment away if it all meant we got to be here, now, in this place, at this time. We are so ridiculously grateful.
———————————
One week ago today, just two blocks from where we are, George Floyd was murdered. Ever since then grief has hung in the air like a hot, windless day. It permeates everything, even and especially us. But something magical happened late in the week when Beth Howard, author and pie maker, called us to ask how we were and if we would mind if she came up and gave away free pie? Ummmm, yes please.
As a team we had to dig really deep in ourselves to make the pies we had already committed to and infuse them with our hearts that felt so broken. You know that song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem? That one part that goes like this:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That's how the light gets in

We just had to forget our perfect offerings and let pie do what pie will do. It worked.
On Sunday morning, we sliced and served pie along side of Beth and her team that people made from Donnellson, Iowa to Minneapolis. Over 80 pies and baked goods were made and shared, all in less than 24 hours. Remarkable doesn’t even come close.
It’s Monday. We took today for rest and reflection and discerned that this week we are going to just be together as a team, learning, cleaning, testing, and telling stories. We know this might not seem productive or even helpful to you right now. But thanks for understanding anyway. We’ll be back with our June menu next week.

Each of us is making our way through each day. That is a holy and blessed task. Some of us need rest, others, action. Some of us need to mourn, others to rage, others to let go.  As we watch for the light coming in through the cracks, may worry turn to trust, may tension turn to calm. May we know ourselves and everyone else to be held in the love of God this day, and tomorrow.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Bless me this night, O God,
and those whom I know and love.
Bless me this night, O God,
and those with whom I am not at peace.
Bless me this night, O God,
and every human family.
Bless us with deep sleep.
Bless us with dreams that will heal our souls.
Bless us with the night's silent messages of eternity
that we may be set free by love.
Bless us in the night, O God,
that we may be set free to love.

Amen.

- J. Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal

The Church has left the building

Daily Devotion - May 31

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) 

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Acts 2:1-21, 38-47

We made it through the night. God is here with us now. In the darkest moments of night this week, when the voices of rage and sorrow have been drown out by the violence of evil and destruction, God was here.  In the brightest moments of the day, where collective mourning took the shape of people showing up to help each other, to protest together, to clean up neighborhoods and deliver food, to weep and serve and love and raise voices and repair what is broken, God is with us.  In all things, God is with us. We are not alone.

When something awful happens, or awful things that have been happening for a long time come to light, once again, in all their ugliness, and claim our attention, the whole world momentarily takes on a micro focus on that crisis.  

We care and we rally, and then we're whiplash shifted onto the next crisis. A dangerous, global virus fell off the radar at the horrible killing of George Floyd.  And the spotlight on the vital cries of outrage at the deep and abiding injustice and racism that needs to be rooted out of our nation, our city, ourselves, shifted to our protests being infiltrated by violent outsiders, the summoning of the national guard and institution of a curfew, and last night’s surreal preparation for street warfare.  And in the midst of all this our daily lives, with our own struggles and joys and are still unfolding.

We human beings can’t hold all these things at once.  We shift our attention to the next one thing, and our despair and exhaustion build, and so does the pressure to focus hard on the specific thing in front of us. 

But the gospel speaks to ALL OF IT - and the message doesn’t change.  

At Pentecost, the Church is born. It’s the beginning of the people whose whole identity and purpose is to remember that the world is loved by God, that we all belong to God and each other.  That is the enduring message through everything else. 

It’s a wide, wide lens that takes in all of it - tyrants rise and fall, crises come and go, continents divide, there is mass destruction and amazing rebuilding, corruption and righteousness, death and rebirth - this being human is a terrible, glorious thing. 

And throughout every moment of it, our God is so relentlessly for us, and made us to be so relentlessly for each other, that into the deepest divides, and the most horrific brokenness, the most impossible situations where no hope can be seen, God came. 

God comes.  

Jesus comes into death to bring life for all. Death does not prevail. The final word is life.  

The world belongs to God.  The world is loved by God and is being redeemed by God. That is our hope, that is our future, that is our calling, that is the gospel, that is our message.  That is the church’s message. 

Always, and now, and always especially now.

We trust this. We live this. 

Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit moving in us to cleanse and heal and renew and empower us to embody God’s love and redemption. Pentecost is the day the Church left the building, and was born into the world. 

I woke up to a post from Holy Trinity Church this Pentecost morning, that said, in part:

We had plans for another video worship service this week, but as the days unfolded it became clear that everyone's energy was needed in the community and our worship became the daily work of the congregation. 

We typically have 200-250 people worship with us on a Sunday morning, but this past week it's been somewhere closer to 10,000. Our communion became our ordinary round tables, spread out on the lawn where thousands of neighbors brought their offerings of food, water, diapers, and tools, and thousands more came to take what they needed. Our hymns became the shouts of the protestors, our healing stations became those providing medical relief, our sharing of peace became listening to the needs anyone who found their way to our sanctuary. It's not the worship we had planned, but the church's witness and work became the worship that we needed.

And here's a holy choir:
Mennonites singing at Minneapolis protest

____________

Here is a list of clean-up events, food drives, and places to donate.  See how you can help. 
This Facebook group: Southside for mutual aid is keeping current.

Here is a S. Mpls. coordinated list of needs that also keeps changing and remaining current.  
 

---

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Is it possible that since the moment the breath was violently forced from George Floyd’s body, we have not taken a deep breath?

Grief and horror have been followed by sorrow, anxiety, anger, fatigue, worry, tension, shame, fear, and ongoing pervasive sadness, and maybe all week we’ve been clenched tight, waiting for whatever is coming next?

I want to invite you to a moment of silence.  After each line, let whatever thoughts or feelings want to arise in you come and go. And then breathe deeply, all the way in, and all the way out, before reading the next line and sitting with that.

This is part of the story.  BREATHE.
This is not the whole story.  BREATHE.
The world belongs to God.  BREATHE.

Maybe you need to do this a few times.
Let this be your prayer.
Let God meet you here.

What's rising up

Daily Devotion - May 30

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Last night was filled with destruction and devastation. The impact is staggering.  Beyond protesters, and even rioters, are those who are taking advantage of our city's pain to sew more division and hate.  The emergency responders are overwhelmed; the nights are feeling long and dangerous.

But the mornings are different.

Neighbors are coming into the street and cleaning together.  Business owners whose restaurants or stores were damaged are being surrounded with love.  Organizers are organizing. People are responding.  

Belonging runs deeper than division, and we are here for each other.
Here is an example:

Yesterday, Kate Kunkel Bailey posted this on Facebook:

 

But this is why I love Minneapolis.

If you drove down Lake Street today, you would have seen literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of people cleaning up. You can start to imagine in your mind how it might not be long before the corridor is prettier than ever. Maybe you would have joined in, and you would have been welcome. The air smells acrid still—anguish does not immediately disappear simply for having been released. But a cool, fresh breeze is blowing, and birds are singing, and you would start to believe that healing can happen.

And if you followed Minneapolis folks on Twitter today, you would have seen the community rallying to care for its own. What problems do we face today in our city? Grocery stores and public transit are closed. In food deserts this matters. We need diapers, formula, food. It might be days before we can get out of our neighborhoods, people said.

And here you would have seen the organizers stepping in. Here is what to bring. Here is where to drop it off. Here, Minneapolis, is how we care for our own.

And when you dropped off your donations, here is the bounty. You were not alone, wanting to help. Our neighbors are fed.

We will do this again, if we have to.

I know that it’s hard to think of rioting as anything other than wasteful, but look at what is already rising up from it. It is not relevant, whether you condone or condemn rioting. It has happened. What is relevant is what you do next. We do not have to waste this moment.

What I know of my city is that it is good at making much with little, when it needs to. What I know of my city is that radical love lives here, too, amid the corruption and pain.

What I believe is that love wins.

Photo credit: Patty Mathews

This is part of the story.  This is not the whole story. The world belongs to God.
The pain and anger and sorrow, the destruction and fear and violence, the deep, systemic inequity and generations-long injustice, the longing for peace and justice that comes out in both wise and terrible ways is part of the story.  So is the love and care, the resurrection breaking through, the way that from these ashes a new city will be born, is already being planted right now with brooms and gloves and tears.  That's part of the story too.
 The world belongs to God.

____________

Here is a list of clean-up events, food drives, and places to donate.  See how you can help.

If you are looking for a specific, local, no-contact way to help, Sanford Middle School has this request:Teacher Elizabeth Berry Novak shares:
The school that I teach at is facing some hardships right now due to the murder of George Floyd.
There are 168 kids from Sanford Middle School living in the 3-block radius of the 3rd precinct. Many have younger siblings. Public transit is closed and their walkable stores have been destroyed. School Nutrition Services are also closed and many of these families need food and basics. We’ve also learned that some have tested positive for COVID19. Here's how you can help, and please share this:
- SUNDAY May 31 from 10am-noon: Drop off of food kits (see below) in brown grocery bags to the Sanford parking lot, 3524 42nd Ave S, MPLS. (curbside, you don't have to get out).
As far as we know, these grocery stores are still operating; pls check hours, and remember the curfew at 8pm: Longfellow Market, E. Lake Street MPLS; Lunds, Ford Pkwy St. Paul; Whole Foods, Snelling Ave St. Paul; Cub Foods, Hiawatha and 46th Street, MPLS.
WE NEED: 85 food kits! A good list follows; please make sure each kit fits in one brown grocery bag:
- 1 loaf of bread
- 1 package tortillas
- 1 bag rice
- 2 cans beans
- 2 cans soup
- 1 small bag apples
- 1 bag baby carrots
- 1 box cereal
(Note: non-refrigerated items in case power is still out and/or it takes an extra day to deliver)
WE ALSO NEED: Small jugs laundry soap and diapers. Just pick a diaper size, we'll figure it out.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Guide me through today, Lord.
Help me watch for the whole story.
Help me take in the terrible parts.
Help me take in the beautiful parts.
Help me see the part I play in the story.
Root out the sin and division in me,
plant me in your love and fill me with hope.
The world belongs to you.
Amen.

Stay here

Daily Devotion - May 29

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Deep breaths, beloved ones.

Here's a psalm for you today, from the paraphrase, Psalms for Praying, by Nan C. Merrill. 

Psalm 90

Eternal and Immortal One,

You have been our refuge in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

before You had formed the earth and the world, 

from everlasting to everlasting,

You are the Alpha and the Omega.

When our days on Earth are ended,

You welcome us home to your Heart,

to the City of Light,

where times is eternal

and days are not numbered.

You gather those who love you

as friends returning from a long journey,

giving rest to their souls.

You anoint them with the balm of understanding,

healing wounds of the past.

For our days on Earth are a mystery,

a searching for You,

a yearning for the great Mystery

to make itself known.

The years pass and soon the 

Harvest is at hand,

a time to reap the fruit of

one's life.

Who has lived with integrity?

Who will reflect the Light?

Who can bear the radiant beams of Love?

Who has reverenced the Counselor,

and opened their hearts to the Spirit of Truth?

Teach us, O Beloved, to honor each day

that we may have a heart of wisdom.

Awaken us, O Holy One! 

Too long we have been asleep!

Help us to wait in Silence

listening for your gentle Voice;

Strengthen us with courage

to face the fears within.

I, that we might be converted in our hearts

and walk together in peace and harmony!

Let your Love be known to the nations,

your Glory to our children's children.

Let the grace and gentleness of the

Holy Spirit be upon us,

guiding our feet upon paths

of Love Consciousness

Increase the Light within us - 

O Beloved, hear our prayer!

Amen.

Right now, there are many emotions. So many emotions that we don't stop to tease out what they are.  The feelings point to needs that are met or unmet - deep values, qualities for life's flourishing as it was made by God for all human beings.  But we don't stop to look at what those needs are either.  

Let's stop and hear our hearts. 

In listening to one another, among us the feelings include: grief, heavy-hearted, worried, afraid, ashamed, hopeless, overwhelmed, guilty, open-hearted, torn, angry, perplexed, disturbed, outraged, devastated, anxious, numb, mistrustful, distracted, despondent, numb, angry, stunned, overwhelmed, sad, anguish, uneasy, dread, baffled, burnt-out, enraged, sad, compassionate, tender, exhausted, apprehensive.  

We are feeling these things because shared human needs are not being met, and we are deeply longing for: closeness, stability, to know and be known, connection, community, harmony, integrity, security, consideration, safety, to understand and be understood, justice, value, equity, belonging, mutuality, rest, cooperation, equality, respect, closeness, competence, contribution and mourning.

What are you feeling right now? (This list can help).

What are you needing?  In other words, what are you longing to see fulfilled?  (This list can help).

It's hard to bear grief. It's painful to sit in sadness.  It's hard to feel lots of things all at the same time.  We want to find a way out of the feelings, and right now there isn't a way out.  In hanging up the phone with someone today, I found myself starting to say, "Hang in there," but that felt weak, like avoidance somehow.  So I changed it to, "Go be sad."  

Mourning is holy work.  

Feel the feelings. Name the needs. Breathe.  Return to the truth that we all belong to God, and we all belong to each other.

Lament. Repent. Pray. Repeat.

Let's try to stay right where we are. Right where God can meet us. 

Tonight we hold our city in prayer and love, trusting from death will come new life. 

______________________________

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

This is an important one. The news feeds are relentless, the interpretations and analysis are plentiful, the emotions are high and the shock is real.
Most of us have not been still or silent. Most of us are reeling and flailing.

So if that is you, please do this tonight.
And if it's not. please do this tonight for us, holding the rest of us in peace and love.

Sit somewhere comfortable.
Light a candle if it helps you be present and remember God is present.
Set a timer for 5 minutes.

Take two deep breaths, all the way to the bottom of your lungs, and let the air out slowly.
Sit in silence.
God is here.
Listen around you.
Listen within.
God is with you.

Amen.

Part of the Story

Daily Devotion - May 28

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

(photo of 12 inch chunk of ash from the Lake Street fires 

on parishioner's grass, several blocks away).

Today the riots in Minneapolis have spread around the Twin Cities. Things are unfolding quickly.  The Cities are is in anguish.  

Some of us feel paralyzed by sorrow.  

Yesterday I found a way forward in in "lament" and "repent." Today added "pray."

This morning a congregant texted me. (I share this with her permission).  "I woke up to the smell of smoke from my open windows. At first I didn’t know if someone had a bonfire or if it was coming from Lake Street. The more I read, the more likely it seems to be from Lake Street."  

I couldn't respond. I was just then taking in the news from last night - the widespread destruction, the death, the unquenchable anger and sorrow, holding up Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, "Riots are the language of the unheard." We are watching the city wail. I felt unmoored by it.  I tried to gather my thoughts to respond to her, but before I could type anything, she texted again,

"This is not the whole story. This is part of the story. The world belongs to God."

These are the words we printed out on cards and mailed out to each other when the pandemic began. These are the words hanging on my fridge.  

When I read them, I felt myself land.  Physically, I actually felt a ka-thunk in my body.  YES.  Her words brought me back.  I felt myself breathe again.  I know this. I trust this.

We can look right at it all--and we should--and say, "This is part of the story."

Oh Lord, hear our prayer! God, have mercy!

But we also say, "This is not the whole story."  

Because it isn't.

For the next few minutes, we found ourselves supporting each other, she and I. With humor, reminders of God's presence, dipping in and out of our morning routines, and with the deepest truth and last word: "The World Belongs to God."

She said, "I keep looking at my backyard. It’s so green. There are flowers everywhere and the peonies are starting to bud."  

"And yet there is stench."

"The discord between the stillness and beauty and the faint but persistent smoke smell."

"The kids toys are sort of strewn about the yard, which adds promise of movement."

"And then I smell smoke again."

I took it in. I breathed. It felt holy.  

"God, in your mercy."  I responded.

Gratitude welled up in me. The moment felt sacred.

I had been seeking solutions, the right words, a place to stand, something to do, answers, a place for the confusing mix of emotions.  And she gave me back the deep reminder, and the holy work.

"This is prayer." I replied. "What you are doing right now. Noticing. Taking it in. You are praying."

And so, that is our holy work today.  

We pray.

We pray. We don't have to have answers, theories, conclusions, clarity, or even words. We don't have to solve, or understand, or know how to process what's happening, or know what to ask God for.

We just have to notice.

To hold in our gaze all the things and let them in.

The joy and pain, side by side. That life is filled with horror and beauty, both. 

We notice, we hold it up and see it.

And we trust that the world is loved by God. 

We trust that God is here. This part of the story is  honored, shared, joined, held.

And then we trust that there is more to the story than this.  That we allbelong to God. We all belong to each other. As broken or lost as that sometimes feels, it cannot be broken and will not be lost.  And even in the brokenness, healing happens. This is an important and painful part of the story.  This is not the story's end. 

All day I have felt myself saying, "God, in your mercy..."

I've been lamenting, repenting, and praying.

That means also receiving the gifts of this day - the beauty, the way life renews itself all around us at every moment. I've stopped by houses and seen faces I haven't seen in three months. That filled me with joy. I planted new green things into the rich, black earth, under blue sky.  These things are part of the story too. And they are not the whole story.  

Both-And.  

But no matter what, now, and always, the world belongs to God.  And the end of the story is love.  It's the love we are longing to see right now.  

So we watch and we pray.

_____________

Can I help in some way? 

If you are looking for somewhere to donate, something to do to help in some way, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, a block from the center of yesterday's riots, is serving as a medical site and response team. For more, and a link to donate, see this facebook post today from my colleague, Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen, pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

______________________________

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other:

Tonight, perhaps we can practice both lamenting and repenting, through speaking or singing these words, until we've felt ourselves emptied out and filled up.

Prayer of Noticing:
What can you notice today?
What feelings, longings, moments, events rise up?
 Let whatever arises come.
Respond to each noticing with, "God in your mercy..." or "Oh, Lord, hear my prayer" or "Thanks be to God."

Breath

Daily Devotion - May 27

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) 

while we are pausing gathering in person. 

- Kara

Our city is grieving, angry, weary.  I have written and erased so many words. I am grieving, angry and weary, and I don't have any words today. 

But my friend, Pastor Jodi Houge, shared this with her congregation today, and it spoke to me. I am grateful for her words.

Breath

The amount of time that we have all spent thinking about breath lately seems staggering. I'm not interested in virtue signaling or an echo chamber because it doesn't lead us anywhere we haven't already been. And I'm tired of the loop.  It's Pentecost this Sunday--and the Spirit blows so hard on those gathered that it feels like everything is coming apart. Perhaps it's time for this to come apart?

We already have a virus that steals breath. And now, we are surrounded by images of a kneeling police officer squeezing the very breath out of a man named George Floyd. While I can't actually find someone to blame for the virus, I do know the collective sin of white supremacy is one I inherited, benefit from and want desperately to be free of. I want things to change because I love your kids and your babies and the expectant parents on the cusp and I want them to grow up without fear. I don't want anyone to have to fight and beg to breathe.

Scripture tells us: "We shall not kill." Lutheran theology takes us to task with a proactive regarding that commandment: "We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life's needs." Baseline: do not kill one another. Next level: help one another live. Racism, church, does not help us live. Not any of us. I have waves of panic when I think specifically of our sweet adolescent boys who are brown or black skinned. George was someone's baby.

Now, there are 10 million actions steps you can take--they are all being heavily circulated right now. But perhaps first we take a minute, a breath, to repent. Because none of those actions steps create real change unless there is change within our own hearts and minds. And as a person of faith, I believe that is holy work. That is the Spirit. That is God-breathed and will bring life.

________

OK, a few words, after all...

When God breathes into dust, life comes where there is no life.  I want to join God in building a world where our belonging to God and each other is the lived reality.  

Our faith gives us two responses, both of which we avoid because they're uncomfortable, and they're honest; they make us face and feel our powerlessness instead of giving us the illusion of power.  But these holy tasks return us to the core of our humanity, and empower us to participate in God bringing life. They are Lament, and Repent. 

When we lament we bear the grief and don't turn away from it. Mouring upholds our shared humanity; it honors the ones who are lost. It keeps us connected to how things should be by bearing the pain that they are not that. 

And when we repent, we confess the brokenness around us, the sin and lies we have absorbed and perpetuated. We come honest to our hearts, so Holy Spirit can cleanse and ready us for the freedom and newness God wants to bring in us and through us.

So today I am returning to breath. I'm lamenting and repenting. 

God, breathe life into the dust of us.
Amen.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Tonight, perhaps we can practice both lamenting and repenting, through speaking or singing these words, until we've felt ourselves emptied out and filled up.

Breathe on me, breath of God.
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love
what thou doest love,
an do what thou wouldst do.