Losing Track of Time

Back at the beginning of the summer, Fred Faria called me up and asked if we might be able to gather a few churches together to honor the memory of the 9/11 attacks 25 years ago.

Fred is a parishioner at Shepherd of the Valley United Methodist Church and was also a key organizer in the Council's State House Covid Memorial a few years ago.

It seemed appropriate to reflect on this milestone, and I thought to myself, "I'm sure a few other congregations would probably get involved."

Fast forward to last Friday.

Throughout the state, communities across the spectrum of faith rang their bells and opened their doors for prayer. In the past few days, we have received images, videos, liturgies, and stories highlighting the spiritual impact of coming together to reflect on the nation we were, the nation we are, and the nation we wish to become.

At some point in the near future, we will share that corporate message back to the community.

Still reverberating with the experience of last Friday, Wednesday night I joined the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence as they led a Migrants' Stations of the Cross through Silver Lake. 

Gathered in St. Bartholomew's, the procession headed into the street, stopping at stations erected on telephone poles and street lights. As we moved from one station to the next, the events of Holy Week were translated and transformed into the story of migration, with all the complex and horrific realities of the world today laid to bare.

I have led many youth through the stations of the cross, but I have never experienced before what I did on Wednesday. As I processed amongst the gathered faithful, made up mostly of Providence's diverse immigrant communities, I was struck by their remarkable act of courage. Here, in the streets of Providence, with everything to lose, our immigrant neighbors, children, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, faced fear with faith. Together, we reaffirmed that the liberative work of the cross transcends not only our differences of faith, but also the artificial and arbitrary designations of the secular state.

On Friday and on Wednesday I lost track of time. The mundanity and frustration of life was disrupted by the ever-present power of God's love.

As we move into the fall, into the season where the veil is thin, into a season that carries great weight in the story of our faith and nation, let us commit to hold one another in prayer, encourage one another in love, and challenge one another in our work of faithful action.