Welcome to Week 2 of Thirty Days of Love 2018. For the following three weeks, we will continue to share a message alongside spiritual resources: an ancestor to ground us, art to inspire, and a podcast recommendation to keep us learning. We hope you find these resources and reflections of use to the work you do from your congregation to your community and beyond.
This week our theme is Good Soil, Good Seeds: Generative Creation. How do we make sure that we start this work well? What are the ways you prepare the soil to ensure your seeds will grow?
We honor our ancestor Florence Luscomb, share We Need You by Katie Blanchard and recommend you check out our most recent episode of Fortification, featuring adrienne maree brown along with some reflection questions. Check out the Thirty Days of Love 2018 All-Ages Activities by Rev. Marisol Caballero. Next week we’ll be back with our third message on enduring the drought times. Stay tuned!
Setting the table, putting in the work on the front end, preparing the soil for planting: it all matters. When we are deliberate and intentional in how we prepare, our results often reflect it. When we are rushed and default to that which we know best, we can often exclude the work and vision of those we say we value. Pat Hussein, a co-founder of Southerners on New Ground, shared the phrase “there are no second first meetings.” It is so succinct and powerful, describing our attempts - often feeble, late or sloppy - to bring people into processes that we have already begun. Sometimes we ourselves don’t need to be setting the table or the agenda. But we have a role to play to support those who do. And sometimes we’ve already begun a process but our integrity requires that we press pause, shift it, end it, or be honest about who has been a part.