The Beloved Community Fund is a resource that will support individuals within Reservoir’s community by
Connecting them to short-term financial assistance
Connecting them to longer-term resources and networks within, and beyond Reservoir Church.
At Reservoir we seek to provide avenues of joy, hope, wholeness, and vitality through human relationship in community, and the beloved community fund will be no exception to this.
Therefore, the Beloved Community Fund’s scope will go beyond just financial need, and offer access to human connection and empowerment via all that our beloved community has to offer. Over the next few months, the beloved fund committee will focus on building a human network of financial, mental, spiritual and physical health resources. As we seek to live out the words of I John 3:11, “for this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”
To fill out a form to start a conversation about your need or someone you’d like us to know about, click HERE.All information provided in this google form will be held in confidence. The BCF budget is $150/week for immediate financial needs, and current distribution turnaround time is 2 weeks. (Effective Date of this form is 11/25/2020.)
Hi, Friends. This month, in our “Salt of the Earth” Sunday series, we are exploring different aspects of what it means to practice healthy and useful faith in community in a post-Christian world. I talked specifically about church this past weekend.
While we wait to return to in person worship together at some point in 2021, this year represents both a crisis and an opportunity for us. Most of us don’t like how homebound and physically separate we are in many areas of our lives. Many of us dearly miss the physicality of shared public life, including that around Reservoir. This is certainly true for me. But with some of that stripped away, there is an opportunity to remember that who we are called to be has not changed. Reservoir Church gathers people who want to be inspired to discover more of the love of Jesus, the joy of living, and the gift of community. We are inclusive of everyone, just as we are, without exception because we believe God is. And humbly, joyfully, we are looking to walk with God and one another into lives that promote flourishing, for one another and for the world at large.
As we move toward the end of the year in church life, here are a few things we encourage you to keep in mind or to respond to. For those of you who have made or want to make Reservoir your church, we strongly encourage you to become members this month. Part of membership at Reservoir involves giving time and resources to support the life and work of the church. If you would like to start giving financially at Reservoir or to make an additional year-end gift beyond your normal contributions, you can do so here at any time. Because are a vibrant, active church in a transient city, every year we need to replace $5,000 to $10,000 per month in giving. Late last year, thanks to folks’ generosity, we were successful in doing so. We are praying for the same this year.
And one more thing on membership. We usually hold potluck members’ meetings 3-4 times per year. It’s been a while. We can’t have a potluck yet, but we will hold a year-end Members Meeting on Sunday, December 6 from 1:00 – 2:30 pm. Please hold the date if you’re able – we’’ll share details very soon!
I mentioned the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in my sermon this past Sunday. Sacks strongly advocates for people of faith to practice the deep particulars of their faith (in our case, to love and respond to Jesus in many ways), while also joyfully engaging in the common good of the whole pluralistic society. Sacks’ writing and speaking is accessible in many places if you’re curious. A great introduction to his wise voice, if you are curious, can be found in a recent “On Being” rebroadcast of an interview with him. I found his comments on faith, on love of the stranger, on sabbath, and on religious reform in our times really helpful. His bracing line he quotes, “We must love one another or die,” and his hopeful response to that were also just what I needed to hear today. We’ll spend two more Sundays looking at healthy and useful faith in the world before we transition to what I’m praying will be the joyful, hopeful Advent and Christmas season that we all need.
This week I’m writing the church letter before This is Us airs, so you won’t have to, or get to, read me quoting it. 😉
I want to first catch the attention of anyone who is newer at Reservoir, and then share an update about how our church is thinking about this season of fewer in-person gatherings.
If you are new to Reservoir in 2019 or 2020, or perhaps still feeling new regardless of your first Sunday with us, join us immediately after Virch this Sunday, November 15th at 11:00am for our New to Reservoir gathering! We’ll meet on Zoom; get the meeting link by emailing info@reservoirchurch.org and joining our church newsletter. Two or our pastors (Ivy and me), as well as one of our Board members and one of our community group leaders, will share our stories of how we came to this church and what we love about it. I’ll also share a bit more about what membership looks like here. And then I’ll stick around as long as you like for questions about anything to do with Reservoir. (If you’re a member who’s been around for a while, this isn’t for you! We’re finally working on scheduling our next members meeting online – perhaps I’ll have a date for you next week on that.)
And now on the COVID-19 front: Perhaps you’ve noticed that cases are going up throughout the country, including in New England. Needless to say, this is heartbreaking for many reasons, one of which is how this impacts church life. We long to be able to gather together in person for Sunday worship, for our community groups, for meals and kids’ gatherings, and all the other many ways we love to be together. But we can’t yet, not in person. I’m trying to think of this as a small taste of the Bible’s accounts of exile. Frankly, having your homeland destroyed and settling as a persecuted minority in a foreign land is far worse than this pandemic. But in both cases, there is freedom to lament our losses and also an invitation to stay close to God and one another: physically distant but spiritually together. And in both cases, the community is encouraged to wonder: what new investments can we make in ourselves, our faith, and our community life? What new discoveries can we find during this time? In what ways can we move toward greater flourishing?
Our Board has extended our timeline for in person worship to no sooner than April, 2021. We do not perceive a safe and appropriate way to gather for Sunday worship in our sanctuary this winter. Instead, we will be using that time to prepare ourselves for the time in 2021 when we will be able to resume worship in person. While I don’t know when that date will be, I know that we will need to make some investments in air circulation and other changes.Board member Dr. Peter Choo and our Director of Operations and Communications Trecia Reavis will be examining our needs and options for preparing our sanctuary for in person worship. Additionally, Peter and Trecia are examining whether or not we will be able to make our sanctuary available for community groups’ indoor use this winter. We will keep you posted, as we do our research.
There’s an election next week, have you heard? I’m kidding. It would be hard to miss the collective anxiety and tension so many of us are experiencing. If you’re able to vote and haven’t, please do so. A doctor I know told me about physicians that have prescribed voting to their patients because using our own agency and voice are good for us. There are real stakes in the election too, as you know. I’ve voted already, and I am praying for outcomes that move us toward healthier, more just futures. I am also praying for you, Reservoir community, that you will know God’s peace and strength for you as we move together through all this year brings.
As we wait, I am trying to pray into the faith the writer of Psalm 146 has, remembering that none of our political leaders merit too much of our trust. So many of their plans – for good or for harm – perish. The psalm remembers that God can be our hope in all circumstances. People have lived and loved and persevered – even when they have suffered – through all manner of political times. And regardless of the will or power of our government, God will remain determined to “set the prisoners free,” “open the eyes of the blind,” “lift up those who are bowed down,” “watch over the foreigners,” and uphold the most vulnerable. May it be, God. May it be.
If you’d like places to gather together next week, in addition to our Sunday services and your community group, we have two offerings available. Our pastor Ivy will be hosting online a time of listening and prayer on Wednesday evening, November 4th. (Details emailed out that day.) And I’m part of a team with Greater Boston Interfaith Organization that is planning a citywide interfaith gathering online on Thursday, November 5th, to remember our shared commitments to human dignity and fair democratic process. (Register for the citywide gathering HERE.) We’d love to have you at either or both gatherings if that would serve you.
This month, we also pivot on Sundays into a short four-week series called Salt of the Earth, in which we’ll look at some ways our faith can be healthy and useful in the times we live in. We’ll be inviting you to remember what it means to belong to Reservoir Church during this time and if you’re not already, to consider becoming a member.
A short warning that in my sermon about God this week, I’ll say a few words about Holocaust theology, including how there were children burned alive by the Nazis during the Holocaust. I won’t linger over the details for long, but I will mention the reality of horrendous human evil in our world – this example being just one of many – and what it means to have faith in God in the face of such evil.
Friends, I wish I could look you in the eye today and shake your hand or give you a hug and whatnot. I’m missing you all in this season of physical distance, even as I am so grateful that we are still spiritually together. As Beth from the TV Show “This is US” pastored us all who were listening last night: “This pain is not forever.”
My newsletter this week includes a release of a report prepared by our Reservoir Equity Diversity and Inclusion team, known as REDI. REDI is an advisory team to help our staff listen, think, and act to become a healthier church of more profound belonging for everyone in our community, across their full range of experience and identity.
I’m so thankful for each person on the team – Brian Kang, Michaiah Healy, Ian Jackson, Cara Foster Karim, Tara Deonauth, Michelle Phillips, Sue Rosenkranz, Alex Coston, and Lydia Shiu – and for the time, energy, and skill they are investing in our church becoming the beloved community we fully dream of being. A couple of years ago, when our Board first talked about commissioning this team, we didn’t know exactly what would first emerge, but I’m thrilled by the ways our REDI team is listening to our congregation and working with other leaders in our community to make us a church that is more whole, that is worthy of the time and trust of everyone involved.
We are a community who believes all people are made beautifully in God’s image and that God is so in love with us all that God became one of us. So to tend to the safe and equitable experience of belonging of all members of our community is core spiritual work for us. While the rest of my comments will focus on our church, I’ll add that I believe our work to make all our communities places of safety and belonging for all people is a critical call on each of our lives.
When you read this report, you’ll read about some beautiful experiences of belonging at Reservoir. We’re thrilled that so many people have found our community to be a place where their story is treasured and their voice is heard. But you’ll also hear times and moments when people felt excluded, misunderstood, or marginalized among us. I hope you can hear these voices as I do: with tenderness, with sadness, and with hope that we can do better. While less than half of the adults active in our community had the chance to complete this survey, I think the experiences shared are important and representative.
The report ends noting some work already underway in our community as well as recommendations for more. Lydia Shiu, one of our pastors, and a co-leader of the REDI team, has done a fabulous job keeping me and her other colleagues informed about REDI discussions and hopes, and I want you to know that all three of REDI team’s recommendations are consistent with my hopes and our staff team’s thinking. I am glad that each of our church staff are supportive of this work in our church as well. In fact, everyone now has an annual anti-racism goal as part of our work plans, which will continue next year.
At the heart of the bad news of this world, we know that people are marginalized and done violence in many forms because of their race, creed, class, culture, gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, and more. As a church in America, we face some uniquely horrible legacies around white supremacy, patriarchy, misogyny, and LGBTQ discrimination in our faith and in our institutions. Yet we proclaim again that central to the good news of Jesus, we are told that we are all known and loved by God, and that we are all called to the work of healing, justice, and repair in our lives and in our communities. I hope that this report inspires you to your own part in that work and gives you some appreciation of the journey your church is on as work toward Jesus’ vision of beloved community for us all.
A couple nights ago, we had our first of three presidential debates as we head into our final month of campaign season this year, so I’d like to say a couple words about church and politics.
None of our politicians are coming to save us. I addressed this at greater length in a sermon last fall, so I’ll be brief. History and our faith make it clear that people and systems of power are often corrupt and self-serving. Additionally, the best and most beautiful work of God revealed in Christ is not accomplished through our political rulers. Some political choices do far more harm, others far more good, but none of them can do as much good as they promise. And love and justice and mercy can find a way even when the worst of them prevail.
People in your communities hold views that you don’t share, perhaps even that you find shocking or abhorrent. That’s likely true in your workplace, your extended family, and your church. I’m not saying that all viewpoints or political stances should be offered respect. Some do great harm. But all people in our communities, particularly here in our church community, are children of God trying the best they can. Please don’t assume everyone in your community group, for instance, sees the world as you do, and please exercise what kindness, curiosity, and humility you can if and when difference is discovered. This is part of the radical love we are called to in Christ. And love has changed more hearts and minds than disdain, shame, and arguments have. So speak your truth, tell your story, but please do so with respect for one another.
Lastly, leaders in your church and your pastors have opinions, but we try to operate in the prophetic tradition, not a position of political expertise. The prophetic tradition of our faith tries to connect God’s heart and mind with contemporary injustice. Our church engages in a local interfaith social justice coalition on issue-based change along these lines. Our pastors, myself included, make comments about practical expressions of the way of Jesus in the world. This is part of Jesus-centered community, to seek to see the redemptive work of God not only in our private lives but in our shared public world. Reservoir, though, doesn’t take collective policy or partisan stances on how government should operate or the precise ways our members should seek to follow Jesus in public life. In very rare cases, such as the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump, I have criticized the immoral, inhumane conduct, speech, and policy of a political leader. That again is part of our prophetic tradition. But still, the church doesn’t endorse particular candidates or parties or systems of change. We pray for and seek the good of our city and world together, encouraging us each to soberly and earnestly do the same however we can.
With all this said, I encourage you to pray for our world and nation, to be active for good and healing and justice wherever you can, and to love your neighbors near and far as yourself. And as you do so, fear not. God’s good news and redemptive work in the world isn’t riding on any one news cycle or election. With the help of God and friends, we’ll get through together.
From Steve Watson: This wasn’t the summer any of us wanted. And the fall, well, we’re just starting to figure out what that’s going to look like, and it’s got its ups and downs ahead to be sure. Can I encourage you to try one thing in the next month, if you haven’t had the opportunity to this summer?
Take a break.Take a moment of restorative rest, what the Bible calls sabbath rest. And then ask yourself – or your partner if you have one – how you can keep doing this?
Sabbath is a Hebrew word that means rest. In Judaism, it’s a weekly opportunity to stop our work and make space for rest, worship, and renewal. Sabbath is one of the ten commandments, which tells us that rest is central to a good life, to a life that honors God. In one of the ten commandments lists, we’re told to rest because we were meant to. When we break our rhythms of endless work and activity, we restore the order of creation. We rediscover something about life as it was meant to be. In the other records of the ten commandments, we’re told to rest as a reminder that we are free – that we’re never to submit ourselves to bondage, even bondage to our personal work or our busy-ness, even bondage to the collective, systemic burdens of an over-busy world and an over-driven economy.
Our staff team at Reservoir is taking the week of August 24-30, Monday through Sunday, as a sabbath week. It’s been a hard year, and I gave the team the week off for whatever would most bring people rest and renewal. I’ll spend more time with my family, more time outside, and linger longer over morning prayers and reading. As a team, we won’t be having meetings. We (probably) won’t be checking our email. We’ll be less available to you, and we’ll be pre-recording the August 30th Sunday service and dropping it on Youtube for us all. The teachings will be on how we find sabbath rest.
If you’re able to do such a thing yourself, if you have unused vacation time you can take in the next month or so, can I strongly encourage you to do so? We don’t need to travel to enjoy sabbath rest. And if you don’t get vacation time, if your life as a working parent or a single parent or an hourly worker or a graduate student seems to afford little opportunity for rest, can I encourage you to get creative?
Some ideas that friends of mine or I have tried that have brought us some measure of rest, freedom, and restoration, and that are possible even under current circumstances:
A day where our phone and computers stay off, all day.
Some extra time outdoors.
A walk with a friend, even if that walk requires social distancing.
If you have kids at home and have a spouse or partner, giving each other a day off(or even half a day off!) from any chores or childcare.
A long, leisurely bike ride, or a visit to a green space you’ve never gone to.
Carving out a quiet hour or two to try a new spiritual practice. (We keep loads of these on our website – here’s one spot.
Hard years require deep souls.
Hard times require rested, renewed people.
If you’re worn down, please ask where you can find more sabbath in your life. And if you’re stuck and feel this is mysterious or impossible, let me know. I’d love to brainstorm with you!
Meanwhile, much love and peace and courage be yours today.
In early July, during a time of prayer for our church, I had this idea come to me with clarity – that I should walk the perimeter of several communities our church serves, praying for the people and concerns of the communities as I do so. “Should” is the wrong word really. When I pray, sometimes I have a strong intuitive instinct for an idea or an action. I trust these as emerging from the Spirit of God in me. Some people call this kind of thing “God speaking to them.” Whatever you call it, if Spirit of God is with us, it’s beautiful to learn to pay attention to that presence.
Why I Walk and Pray
These two pictures capture the subtle difference between two different ways to walk and pray, only one of which works for me. The day was hot, muggy, with temps rising into the 90s, so I was dressed casually. But I got ready to bike to the Cambridge border to begin my first walk around Cambridge, wearing the stole of an ordained clergy person, as I was praying as a pastor on behalf of the city. But I remembered that these stoles have their origins in the vestments of Roman imperial officials, later copied by pastors and priests, to signify their position or power. And I thought – that’s all wrong for my prayer walks. So I replaced the stole with a basic kitchen towel. One, I didn’t want to sweat all over my friend’s stole I’d been borrowing and I could use a towel to mop all my sweat on this day’s 12-15 mile walk. But two, I walk and pray not doing anything imperial. I’m not claiming land or people for Jesus, not doing spiritual battle in that sense. (If that makes no sense to you, know that there is a whole bunch of prayer teaching that has this kind of martial attitude.) That’s not my style at all. I walk and pray to learn about a place, and to pray for what I learn. I walk and pray because I have ADHD and I just think better while I’m moving. And I walk and pray because I have a theology that says God walks with us and God can be found everywhere, so when I walk and pray, I believe God is ahead to me to be discovered and that God at the same time walks with me, helping me see and learn and shaping my heart as I do so.
Cambridge – Power to Heal or Destroy
I started my prayer walk just across the JFK Bridge from Cambridge, in front of a field by the Harvard Business School, where Napalm was first tested. Napalm was the stuff the U.S. used to fire bomb Japanese cities during the final year of World War II and used to firebomb Vietnam some twenty-five years later. It was invented by Harvard chemists, with some help from Dupont, under commission from the U.S. Air Force. And it was used to kill hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Japanese and Vietnamese civilians, and to burn many houses and cities, and despoil forests and ecosystems. It was tested in a whole dug into this soccer field, or one of the other ones nearby. Cambridge – with its premier research universities and large and influential technical and pharmaceutical companies – is a city of enormous influence and power. So I prayed again and again that God would raise up more of us, made in God’s image, to use our power and privilege to heal, not to harm. And that God would more healing and less destruction through these mighty institutions of Cambridge.
Signs of Life Everywhere – And on Not Taking Ourselves Too Seriously
While walking alongside Memorial Drive, you see so much more than travelling by car or even bike. Cambridge is so beautiful – and there is life of all kinds everywhere, be it in the flowers growing alongside sidewalks, or the mix of wasted and ingenious solutions to shelter where some of our city’s unhoused sleep at night, or in the flocks of birds that travel and rest and breed and eat alongside the river. Struck my all this delightful life, I was aware that I was walking right by Cambridge’s Morse Elementary School, where our church gathered for Sunday worship most of its first six or seven years. I only visited a service once during those years, but both from my visit and from all I’ve heard of that era since, there was so much life in our church during those early years. We grew, and grew exclusively – as fast as any church in New England has ever grown. And we had so much fun – there was a lot of delight and surprise in the community and in our gatherings. We also, though, started to take ourselves too seriously during those years. We got a lot of attention – too much attention – for our growth, and we thought we were so very special. Sometimes we seemed to think we were one of the most important things God was part of on earth, or at least in our region. And that taking ourselves too seriously didn’t do us any favors, then or in the future. There was a lot for me to ponder in this – about joy, about fun, about staying humble and grounded, regardless of what other people say about you.
MIT, The State House, and a Big Baptismal Pool
Continuing to walk along the Charles, I saw the mighty concrete structures of MIT and felt the impressive image of strength that institution projects – intellectual formidability meets hand-on ingenuity. What can those gods not do? And then as I prayed, I felt the insecurity and fear of so many of MIT’s younger students, and maybe of so many of its staff and faculty of all ages as well. I prayed for healing. And I prayed for the learning and discussion around race happening on all our campuses and in so many of our institutions, for capacity to listen, to really listen in the Jesus they-who-have-ears-to-hear kind of way. And I prayed for the humility that will help facilitate learning and transformation.
Looking across the river to the State House, I prayed for our legislature and governor, as I did throughout the day, that beneath their gilded dome, and beneath the mix of people-pleasing and policy making and politicking that happens there, our elected officials would do justice, and particularly that they would do justice in police reform, in health care access, and in immigrant rights.
One more funny little vision. Either in the Spirit, or kind of dehydrated at this point, as I looked at this widest section of the Charles River, I pictured it as an enormous baptismal and also as a giant civic swimming pool, where residents of Cambridge and Boston and surrounding communities get into the water to identify with the crucified and risen Jesus and feel the freedom of new life, and also just to play and cool off. Let me know if you need baptising, friends – it so joyful to get under the water or have water poured over the head as a sign of death and life, and the pouring out of the Spirit upon us!
Cambridge Street – Heart of the City
I fell in love with Cambridge Street today. It feels like the heart of the city. A little pink house, a live chicken butcher, poetry engraved upon the sidewalks, signs inviting us to reflect on the city’s atmosphere – there is so much life, so much striving. Working class, but now gentrified East Cambridge is tied to Harvard University, with three large Cambridge public schools and Cambridge Hospital set in between. As a lover of this city, I prayed blessing after blessing, that God flourishes all the living and eating and teaching and learning and healing and dying and striving and resting that happens on this street.
North Cambridge Home, Green Space Beauty and Annoyances, and The Witness of Jesus
So North Cambridge and the West End are really big. Walking through Porter Square, pit stopping for a bathroom break at our church, and then circumnavigating Alewife and Fresh Pond and the neighborhoods nearby is a lot of miles of walking. A lot of beautiful miles too. Insanely sweaty, legs tired, low on water at this point, I too fewer pictures and prayed with less focus.
But I was struck how homey Rindge Avenue felt, not just because I’ve spent more hours along this street than anywhere else in the city, not just because the home base of my beloved church is there, but because it is also a residential center of the city. Loads of people live in North Cambridge, thousands of souls – speaking many languages, living many different lives, of all manner of demographics, all made beautifully in God’s image.
This part of the city is greener than most. There is the extraordinary reservoir after which our church is partly named. There are the wetlands by Alewife. There are a lot of household gardens. But as I prayed about the land and people’s enjoyment of the land, I was annoyed that green space isn’t evenly accessed by residents of this city, and all cities. I was especially annoyed by the golf course. Sorry, golf lover, but I’m with Malcolm Gladwell in finding golf courses to be environmental travesties and undemocratic wastes of good green space.
So there’s that, but near the end of my walk, as I passed St John’s monastery, I had the chance to pray for a while about the presence and witness of Jesus in our beautiful city. I ended the day more convinced than ever that the life of Jesus runs deep in this city Jesus loves and lives in and roots for its best, along with the rest of us.
I have been feeling a bit powerless lately. So much is out of my control it seems, from Covid to racial injustice. There’s so much happening in the world that I’m sad about, that I grieve, that I’m angry about, that I can’t do anything about. I feel like a drop in the ocean.
A recent documentary came out about Bruce Lee, a powerful force of personality and fitness, a Chinese-American who made an impact in Hollywood at a time when Asian actors weren’t taken seriously, is titled ‘Be Water’ after a quote from Bruce talking about the power of water. He says, “You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJMwBwFj5nQ&feature=youtu.be)
So then again, a drop of water here and a drop of water there can be powerful. That’s what I’ve been learning through the work of organizing. As many of you know, Reservoir Church has been a member of Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), partnering with 40+ congregations, synagogues, mosques to work together toward public good. Since the outbreak of Covid and in the wake of George Floyd’s death, GBIO and new folks who’ve never been involved with GBIO were activated to come together to take action. From individual grief and powerlessness, we came together for a Racial Justice Campaign for police reform and healthcare reform in the state of MA. We began setting up In District Meetings (IDM) to engage our state representatives who will be voting on some important legislation that would impact real change and accountability in both our police and healthcare system.
It has been hard work. It has been confusing work. Amendments were being added or taken out daily and it was difficult to keep up with all the politics! I was constantly Googling who’s in what district, and learning that how to pronounce “Representative Provost” was important (It’s just pro-vo. The “st” is silent!) We were all doing this over zoom of course and lots of emails. But through it, I experienced little drops of Reservoir (yes, I’m trying to do a pun) gather here and gather there, becoming a powerful force of water that put grooves into state politics that sometimes feel like heavy stones to break through.
Our church SHOWED UP with stories from their personal lives:
-like Meghan Cary about her journey through mental health care,
–Michaiah Healy sharing stories from her town, and more.
Our church SHOWED up with Kristina Harrison, Evelyn Manning, Iueh Soh, Estivaliz Castro, Roger and Clarie Dewey, Paul Castiglione, Sue Rosenkranz, Grace Golding, and Kimberley Hutter in the planning of IDM’s, running the meeting, asking Representatives hard questions in the meeting. And MANY more showed up as constituents. Shout outs to the Faith Into Action Team and everyone else who I didn’t catch at the various meetings–THANK YOU for showing up.
Our drops of tears, our frustrations, our emails and calls to representatives, our presence in the Zoom calls were poured into the containers of various districts in the Greater Boston area, and it made an impression on our state House Reps. I didn’t know I had that kind of power. Well, maybe I don’t, but we do. And as I learned from Iueh, one of our Faith Into Action Core Team leaders, he likes to remind us of a quote from Roberto Unger and Cornel West, “hope is not the cause of action, hope is the consequence.” Which has been true for me.
I’m so proud of the work that Reservoir was a part of and that I got to be a part of. And there’s much more work to be done.
Here’s another example of Reservoir people bringing their own stories to make an impact: John Griffith, Aina Adler and their daughter Lily shared their story on WCVB5 News.
Their experience of racial disparity in the healthcare system moved me to tears. John spoke out about it on his Facebook and it’s been shared a few thousand times. Lily shouldn’t have experienced this because of the color of her mother Aina’s skin. But this is being black in America today.
The #BlackLivesMatter movement is an opportunity for all of us to advocate for those who are being marginalized because of their skin color–their health and their lives are at risk. GBIO will be continuing in the work of racial justice focusing on police reform and healthcare reform in the weeks and months to come. Stories like John and Aina’s should not leave us powerless but take it from them, and let’s speak out and do something. Our faith can inform us to do something about it. If you’d like to be involved with Faith into Action, a group of Reservoir folks who want to organize towards justice and action, please email me at lydia@reservoirchurch.org. Don’t underestimate the power of a drop of water, like Bruce Lee said. Or like Jesus said, the power of a seed.
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matt 17:20
(text is from the letter that went out to the Reservoir Church community 6/24/20)
Happy Summer!
While all our weekly emails sign off from Steve, our senior pastor, they’re really from your whole pastoral team. This week in particular is from Steve and Ivy, our pastor of community life, as we’re excited to share a bit about in person gatherings in our community!
It has been incredibly moving to see how you have carried one another during these last few months of pandemic. In a time where the realities of these hard, wild days do their best to tug us into isolation and disconnection – you have rallied and adapted and continued to make sacred space proving that there is “no distance in the Spirit.”
These months more than ever, have revealed just how vital connection is to our well-being, our souls. And the ways that you have continued to meet with one another to pray, to express joy, to weep, to grieve, to celebrate daily victories, to sit in the presence of God has been encouraging.
“Where two or three are gathered,” Jesus said, “there I will be also.” Turns out – Yes! – even via virtual platforms. This gathering together has been so powerful, beautiful and a lifeline to so many! Thank you, thank you!
Unlike many summers, where we encourage community groups to take a break – we’ve heard from many group leaders, that there is an eagerness to continue to meet virtually as well as start to hold smaller in-person gatherings.
As COVID-19 numbers are decreasing, the state is gradually, and carefully reopening. As such, we are inviting community groups and other small circles of people in the community to gather in person, if you would like to. No group should feel they need to meet in person, and we ask all groups to continue to meet virtually if you have members who would prefer that, either for their safety or their risk tolerance.
If you do gather in person however, please observe the following precautions (these are meant to supplement – not replace – any laws, rules or regulations in your local communities):
Gather outdoors (look for a time when the ground is dry and odds of rain are low!)
Gather in groups of 10 or fewer (if your group is larger, split into two or more pods for meet-ups this summer)
Meet in a large backyard (if possible), or an area of a public park without a lot of foot traffic, here are a few in the greater Boston area; Danehy Park (Cambridge), Larz Anderson (Brookline), Arnold Arboretum (Boston – JP), Lincoln Park (Somerville).
Maintain *at least* six feet physical distance.
Wear masks
Bring your own food or drink, rather than sharing.
Consider air high-fives, footshakes, or elbow taps instead of hugging and handshakes.
Enjoy conversation, prayer as you normally would.
If you feel sick, or are exhibiting any ill symptoms, please stay home.
Have hand sanitizer available, if hand-washing is not easily accessible.
However you gather this summer, whether virtually or in-person or a hybrid – remember that Jesus is with you, binding you to one another, spirit to spirit – may you relish in this warmth in the weeks to come.
