The Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes is a theologian and pastor with experience in education, activism and the arts. She describes her life as being “committed to the struggle for justice, the healing of the human spirit, and the art of relevant and radical creativity.” In our individual and collective struggles to process current events and respond faithfully, she offers us this list of spiritual reflections and practices:
1. Breathe deeply and exhale slowly three times.
2. Your ancestors survived many crises. Wheat were the crises of their days that required communal response?
3. What is the crisis of your day that requires communal response?
4. Sit for ten minutes. Feel the “troubles of this world.” Breathe deeply, exhaling your sense of helplessness, inhaling strength and resolve (visualize exemplars, including one exemplar from a cultural community that is not your own).
5. Remember an instance of oppression against a group that is not yours.
• What, if anything, did you feel call to do as an ally? Did you do it? If you did something in response to the crisis, what did you do and what happened as a result?
• If your community were under siege, what help would you need or want?
With prayers for justice and peace,
