Imagine by Rev. Terri Dennehy
Imagine we have arrived.
Imagine
the lush river
cannot swallow us
or drown out
the voices
of our hearts.
We have come
to these eagle-nested shores
to celebrate with the drums
of dancing feet.
We have come,
a gathering of wings,
arising
out of the hard shells
of loneliness
and into the streets.
Out of the violence and the rush
of the trains and the drives between,
out of the pain
in the waiting rooms
and the classrooms,
the boardrooms and the bedrooms,
we are birthing into light.
We are holding our palms to the sky—
awake and amazed
that we can trust the hush, the hum,
the hands
we fall into like waves.
We are listening to the sighs,
to the aches of our histories,
to the silences pinched beneath skins—
and we are learning
how to speak our own names:
soft and slow now,
turned over and over
in our mouths,
until they shine
on our tongues like silver pearls,
until something
inside us is a sail,
is gratitude
billowing and free.
This month’s Soul Matter Theme, Imagination, invites us to consider how our imagination can help us meet this moment in our lives and the shared history we are experiencing. Like my colleague, whose words are above, I too believe that imagination is the source that moves us beyond the limitations that are often arbitrarily or, perhaps more so, intentionally established to keep us in the places that others would have us occupy.
Many have asked me over the past month, “What can we do?” The answer is not an easy one in many ways. What we are experiencing now has been decades, even centuries, in the making. The pendulum of time has swung us back into issues we thought were settled. But most of us thought this because we have not had to endure the continuing forces of oppression the way those who have been marginalized since the beginning continue to experience.
What we can do is. We can continue to listen to those whose history is that of surviving and thriving beyond intentionally established and arbitrary boundaries. We can use our privilege to echo the voices of those who know firsthand what we all now are witnessing. We can use our bodies to bear witness in, and protest those moments when others’ lives are threatened. We can use our power to demand accountability from those elected to serve us. We can use the right and privilege of the ballot box. We can invite those made vulnerable by current and historic circumstances into the embrace of our community, where we can imagine together more ways to make the world safer, more equitable, and free.
In the days, weeks, months, and years to come, we can continue to awaken in each other new ways to make our shared values and the mission of this congregation ever more demonstrable in the communities we love and the world we serve. Let’s use our imagination!
Blessings,
Aaron