Category: Justice
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Holy Spirit, Spark a Vision
When I began my ministry, the very first task assigned to me was to attend a faith-based organizing training. One of the many gifts of that experience was the understanding that power is worth cultivating as long as you have a positive purpose that is larger than that power. In this text, the Holy Spirit…
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Holy is the Refugee
In 2023 I was planning for a Lenten season focused on the body. I wanted to lift up the value of bodies that are often mistreated and undervalued in our world. The result is a kind of “beatitudes of the body”, a prayer for change and a reminder that human beings bear the image of…
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Our Hearts Proclaim a Living God
Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, has called us to faithful and expansive language for God for decades with work including the groundbreaking book She Who Is (1991). More recently, she wrote: “All-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men … Once women no longer relate to men as patriarchal fathers,…
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May We Be Free
During a visit to the Statue of Liberty in 2023, I was moved by the museum exhibit contrasting the dreams of freedom in the United States with the reality of our past and present. So many have worked to realize freedom in this land, and so much work remains to be done. I returned to…
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Let There Be Rest
This hymn began as an exploration of the commandment to rest and to ensure rest for the people, animals, and land around us. I was inspired by ongoing conversations about rest as an issue of justice including the work of Tricia Hersey, the “Nap Bishop,” who teaches that rest can be both resistance and reparation.…
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As We Are, We Are Yours
I have participated in many communities that try to welcome those on the margins of society or on the margins of the church. This is a beautiful sentiment, and it can also contribute to more “othering”. In the contexts that I experienced it was we, the white, the educated, the wealthy, the able-bodied, the cisgender: we embrace…
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Roll Away the Stone
How do we receive an Easter message of hope when we’re struggling? Here is a hymn for all those churches finding their ways into new expressions of ministry and all the folks weary from personal and political challenges. I wrote it with inspiration from the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ…
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O Jesus Who Traveled
During Holy Week, many churches read extended passages of the Gospels which share stories of Jesus’ last days. We remember the gifts that Jesus offers us while also recalling the many people and systems that betray him. This text can be a companion on that journey, with the verses being interspersed with readings if desired.…
Hannah C Brown 