“Love and truth meet in the street,
Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!”
Psalm 85:10, The Message
Peace and blessings to you all as we stand and work together at the intersections! It is sometimes difficult to hear or to find a good word in the midst of justice being deferred or denied. In my own disappointment and fear I was mostly silent, but then a few people who knew I was a bit too quiet reached out to encourage me to speak again. David Gates, in the song “If,” says it this way:
“And when my love for life is running dry
You come and pour yourself on me.”
In this season of hope and expectation I wish to make an appeal – Let us think and act so that love and truth can, in fact, meet in the street, and Right Living and Whole Living can hug and kiss! Our devotion to God and our common lot as human beings call for no less than a repudiation to that which generates fear and demeans people. Can we craft a language that takes racial realities seriously without “whitewashing” it? Can we “pour ourselves” into the beloved community that God has fashioned for us, if we only embrace it and live it? Because of you, dear partners of faith, I am ready to dance again! Care to dance with me?
Michael L. Cobbler, Board Co-Chair of Committee Working at the Intersection of Oppressions