Advent blessings to you,
This Advent season, I hope you’ll join me and others in the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship as we gather around the words of the familiar Advent hymn: “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” These words invite us to reflect on where we found hope in this last year and where we think it’s leading us in 2022, and we’re excited to share some of those reflections on hope over the coming weeks.
The hope we’re seeking is not shallow or easy, and it’s not optimism. Hope is a choice we make to name what is good and right in the world; hope is our choice to tend those good and right things, without ignoring or downplaying the wearying injustice of the world.
As we reflect, find hope, and dream of the future together, one way you can help us prepare for next year is by giving a financial gift to PPF. This email kicks off our annual Advent Giving Campaign, when PPF raises a large portion of the funds we need to do our work together. My friend and co-moderator of Fossil Free PCUSA, Liv Thomas, wrote the letter below. You may receive this letter in the mail, but it’s too good not to share here via email, too.
Peace, rev. abby mohaupt, PPF Co-Moderator |
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Rooted in yesterday to be active now, so we can imagine: "now what?" |
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When I “met” PPF and Fossil Free PC(USA) nearly four years ago as an intern during the 223rd General Assembly, I found a bold community of people eager to address the reality of our world’s “now,” even if it feels challenging or unpopular. For the first time in my life, I encountered a model of a national, Christian organization that responds to the justice-demanding call of Jesus Christ with resolute urgency. Since that General Assembly I’ve remained involved with the divestment work of Fossil Free PC(USA) and continue to be challenged and transformed by our work together.
Through my connection with FFPC(USA) I’ve come to understand that to be engaged in the climate activism movement is to be acutely aware of what work was left unfinished yesterday. Yesterday, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow, sufficient plans to reverse climate destruction were not adopted. Yesterday, the corporations running the petrochemical plants of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” were not served a cease and desist letter to stop their illegal dumping and poisoning of surrounding neighborhoods. To be engaged in the climate activism movement is to also be acutely aware of the power of “now.” |
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Now is the time to implement a comprehensive overhaul of our country’s car-centric transportation infrastructure. Now is the time for those of us who have lost connection with our local lands and waterways to reconnect and to learn from indigenous leaders how to truly steward the earth. Now is the time to introduce well-paying green jobs into our economy. Now is the time for the Presbyterian Church (USA) to stop making money from the destruction of God’s creation and to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
Activists, organizers, and peace-seeking folks alike need to be keenly aware of the collective yesterday so that we know what to fight for in our precious ‘now’! But, friends, we must be careful not to become so focused on our ‘yesterdays’ and on our daunting ‘now’ that we forget to ask ourselves, “now, what?” Sociologist Ruha Benjamin reminds us to “remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” The answers to our “now, what?” invite us to imagine (vividly and specifically!) the world that we want to live in. Take a moment to remind yourself of the world you dream of living in, the world that our action now is moving us toward. For me, that world is one in which we feed each other with food we grow in our shared gardens. One in which we can visit each other via carbon-free transit systems. One in which our churches know their neighbors' needs and bravely take the lead in organizing local community care projects. And, one in which the wildflower seeds we plant right now may burst forth in glorious abundance. Like seeds sprouting under the soil, or new life growing in the darkness of the womb, the promises of Advent offer a thrill of hope in a weary world. |
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Recently, when I’ve been feeling especially frustrated by our “now” I put on a song called “The Time for Flowers” by Emily Scott Robinson. This song’s beautiful lyrics, which you’ll find quoted below, remind us that one of the bravest things we can do and one of the boldest gifts that we can give one another is to imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist.
May we turn our expectant waiting into bold dreaming this Advent season!
Yours in gratitude, |
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“I went walking down the road With a heavy heart and miles left to go When I came upon a woman in a field on her knees Singing ancient songs and sowing wildflower seeds Tell me what's the point in planting pretty things In these days of darkness and disease The world is burning, have you not heard She smiled and said Honey, I've lived long enough to learn The time for flowers will come again Maybe in one year, maybe in ten There are days despair will win But the time for flowers will come again”
-Emily Scott Robinson, “The Time for Flowers” |
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Make a gift to PPF today! And join us on December 15, when abby, Liv, and Colleen Earp will be leading a Bible study on Revelation 22 where we’ll dream together about a new heaven and new earth, even as we face the end of the world. |
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The Advent photograph is of the Lagoon Nebula and was taken by the Hubble telescope in 2018. A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust in outer space; it is the space between stars, and the dark edges act as a nursery for new stars. The word comes from Latin, meaning “mist, vapor, fog, smoke, or exhalation”, and though the luminous gas looks like soft, peaceful clouds, this generative space is raucous and in a constant state of flux. |
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Presbyterian Peace Fellowship |
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