Thursday, June 2, 2022

The Rev. Anne Williamson

Wear Orange

‘To everything there is season, a time for every purpose under heaven’.

These are familiar words, and from the writer in the Hebrew Scriptures to the folk rock band The Byrds, there is a tacit acknowledgement of the inevitability of change. Some change is hard…but necessary…some change is good…but hard. One of the lines of this biblical poem talks about ‘a time to scatter stones’. I have had various conversations this week with the organizers and participants of the Wear Orange event this coming Saturday, June 4 (more on that below) and in a conversation today with another faith leader in town, we talked about the need to scatter stones in this moment: stones of injustice, stones of hatred, stones of violence, all the stones that lie in the path of peace that as Christians we belief Jesus has called us to walk. How is God calling us, how is God calling me, to scatter stones and make way for peace?

A question I have heard a number of times over the last week, in response to the African proverb, ‘when you pray move your feet’ is – how DO we move our feet in this moment? How do we turn our prayer for peace into action. I don’t have a single answer for that question, but I do believe there is an answer for each one of us – it might be writing letters to the politicians who have the power to make the laws to scatter the stones of injustice, hatred and violence. It might be giving time, talent or treasure to the institutions we believe can make a difference. It might be reaching out to those we know – family members, colleagues, neighbors who might see how to scatter stones differently then we do (they might have completely different stones they want to scatter!). I cannot say what is right for you, but I do encourage you to pray about how you might be a scatterer of stones, and what God is calling you to.

The Wear Orange event is not a response to Buffalo or Uvalde or to the death of a third grader from Little Harbor School in a drive by shooting in South Carolina this past week, although we will remember them on Saturday. It is a national event that began to commemorate the life of Hadiya Pendleton, a young musician who lost her life to gun violence, two week after performing at President Obama’s inauguration in 2013. Her school friends began this event on what have been her 18th birthday – June 2, 2015.

Since that time, the grass roots organization, Moms Demand Action, participates in Wear Orange, a nonpolitical, nonpartisan national event that recognizes the victims of gun violence and brings community partners together to raise awareness of gun violence. This year, in conjunction with lighting the Memorial Bridge orange, Moms Demand Action Seacoast is planning a Wear Orange event in downtown Portsmouth at Prescott Park, in the area closest to the bridge, on Saturday, June 4th, at 7:30 PM. North Church in Market Square will open their doors from 6pm for prayer/reflection and making of prayer flags. Wear Orange is an event of remembrance and hope, as well as raising awareness. As we light candles together, we will remember those who have died, the families and the communities devastated by gun violence, and call upon God to make us instruments of peace…scatterers of stones in the path of peace. I invite you to listen to The Porter’s Gate sing ‘Make me an instrument of peace’ as you reflect.

Please join me on June 4th.

Peace

Anne