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Batiste asked him for his best pearls of wisdom. Lewis answered simply, according to the same religion he has followed since he was a child, “Sometimes someone says something hostile to me and I say ‘You don’t believe that. Your mother didn’t teach you that.’” He told a story about a Klan member who visited his office at the Capitol with his son, 50 years after beating Lewis bloody during the Freedom Rides, to apologize. The Klan member wept, his son wept, and Lewis forgave him, hugged him and started crying himself. “Hate is too heavy a burden to bear. Love is a better way,” he t This Sunday, we are once again blessed by guest preacher, Rev. Lynice Pinkard, who will continue to bring us wisdom from Jesus’ parables about the power of believing and acting in faith, that there is enough for us all, in the face of overwhelming need. Rev. Lynice Pinkard Rev. Lynice is a writer, speaker, UCC minister, chaplain and public intellectual operating at the intersection of Christianity, economics, and social change. She is a graduate of Pacific School of Religion with both an MA and MDiv and is the former pastor at First Congregational Church of Oakland. As a result of her rich heritage growing up in the African Methodist Episcopal church and the witness of her parents’ commitment to social justice, Rev. Lynice developed an early and keen sensitivity to the ways in which disparities of power and forms of oppression affect the quality of the lives of people around the world. In recent years, Rev. Pinkard has co-founded several ministry-focused, community-based non-profits: Share First Oakland (addressing issues of hunger and structural food insecurity); Urban Sanctuary (building therapeutic collaborations between West Oakland activists and neighborhood residents, e.g., community gardeners and recyclers, artists and restorative justice advocates, marriage equality advocates and formerly incarcerated African American men in West Oakland neighborhoods); and Seminary of the Street (forming and training West Oakland neighborhood residents for faith-based critical justice work). Read more about Rev. Lynice HERE. Love, |
This Sunday, July 19th, we are blessed to have with us my friend and colleague, Rev Davena Jones, Associate Conference Minister for the Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ. Here’s a 44 second hello video Rev. Davena made for Skyline.
So much is being revealed to us in this great disruption, if we have the eyes to see it.
May we have the courage to see what has always been there before us, including what lies within us. Please join us on Monday July 20 as part of the Poor People’s Campaign in a nation-wide, Strike for our Lives (see info below)
The world’s sacred texts describe the journey of enlightenment as the development our capacities for seeing and hearing anew, especially those who are different from us.
I’d like to share with you a quote from Thich Nhat Hahn, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who was nominated in 1967 for the Nobel peace prize by the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr. This quote is about to developing the capacity to see all that lies within us, entitled, “Please Call Me by My True Names”. Here is a context for his reflection.
Please Call Me by My True Names
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.
This gives me endless hope. Together, we help each other see our way through to a better, more beautiful world.
with love, Pastor Laurie
 I have so much gratitude for our faith community, particularly now, in these challenging times. This community is so vitally needed, especially now, to bring forth greater equity and inclusion. On Sunday, July 5th, in the spirit of freedom and the inherent worth and dignity of us all, we joined together for part 2 of our virtual Annual Meeting.
Thank you all for an engaging discussion about our ministries!
My deepest thanks to the team of organizers: Carolyn Noble, Jane Medema, Nancy Taylor, Catherine Kessler, Philippa Pegram, David Guerra, and Mirtha Ninayauer.
It is our hope that this becomes on ongoing conversation, not only among the service team leaders, but among us all as we continue in the spirit of this great spiritual migration together. For those of you who were unable to attend, we encourage you to review the slides, to learn more about our accomplishments and goals together.
Even more we encourage you to share with us, what do you hope for? Where do you see yourself? What are your priorities for our wider, external mission, in this time and place?
This Sunday and the week ahead:
Towards that end, join us for worship this Sunday where we will explore the need and value of Jubilee. It was a practice within ancient Judaism, held every fiftieth year, designed by God for the people to have a full stop, a complete re-set to restore one another; time to restore families, time to eliminate debt, time to forgive, time to reset. I believe that is what we are in right now, not only in our 50th year worshiping at Skyline sanctuary, but more importantly in the world. I believe that circumstances are making it clear that it’s time for a full stop. Specifically, it’s time to stop trying to make things work that are broken at the core. We will focus on the need for a Jubilee from debt and wealth inequality, for people of color, of rest for the earth and a jubilee from the religion of what Cornell West calls, “gangster religion”.
After worship this Sunday, July 12, at 11:30, Jane Medema (scholar, teacher, ordained minister, and counselor), will facilitate a virtual discussion via Zoom based on Brian McLaren’s book, The Great Spiritual Migration. In the discussion she will draw forth our universal values as an evolving faith community on a spiritual, theological, and missional migration journey. Please review appendix 2 prior to our meeting or just join us!
Then, next Tuesday, July 14, at 10:30 am, you’re invited to join us by Zoom or phone for a conversation, led by Charles Holmes, an author, poet, seeker, a scholar, and a wise and caring man, entitled, ‘COOL THOUGHTS FOR OLDER FOLKS” Last week (July 7) , we focused on the themes of mental conditioning, stress, best self, understanding and caring, drawing from various sources, including poetry, quotes, and a time of reflection and sharing on the themes of growing in wisdom. On Tuesday, July 21 at 10:30, we will focus on the theme of centurions reflecting upon the secret to their longevity.
May this be a time of reflection, creativity and renewal for us all,
Pastor Laurie
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Sundays, August 9th through Sunday, September 13th, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
This Sunday after worship, the Spiritual Life Team will continue the discussion of Brian McLaren’s book, The Great Spiritual Migration. Our leader will be facilitating the discussion focusing on the theological migration, from belief in a violent God of domination to a non-violent God of liberation.
For those of you new to this discussion, the book describes a movement of progressive congregations and leaders. With favorable reviews from such as Richard Rohr, Joan Chittister and Diana Butler Bass, McLaren offers three propositions. He believes that among Christians and people of other faiths there are three migrations:
- there is a spiritual migration from reliance on a system of beliefs to developing a way of life (the way of love)
- there is a theological migration from belief in a violent God of domination to a non-violent God of liberation
- there is a missional migration from organized religion to organizing religion. (the way of love and justice)
We are looking forward to a lively discussion!
Prior to this Sunday, please read/review Brian McLaren’s book, The Great Spiritual Migration.
If you’d like to order a copy, please do HERE!
We look forward to sharing the journey together.
Pastor Laurie and the Spiritual Life team
Pastor Laurie (421-2646) revlauriemanning@aol.com
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 716 026 467
Dial in by phone 1-669-900-9128
Pastor Laurie and the Spiritual Life team
Pastor Laurie (contact via office 510-531-8212; office@skylineucc.org – email is best during shutdown)
Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
The slow, brutal public execution of George Floyd has ignited international outrage. White people are becoming more conscious of what black people have known for centuries about the deep, violent, pervasive, structural, systemic racism within this country. I’ve been wondering, is this movement sustainable, and what can we do to sustain it?
Related to this desire, and as we consider our priorities as a church for this fall, I would like to share with you this week’s E-Letter reflection from our Conference Minister Diane Weible: (copied below)
Blessings upon your week, Pastor Laurie
Let’s Talk: About 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds
By Conference Minister Diane Weible
Each morning I spend 8 minutes and 46 seconds in silence. My thoughts go in many directions and over the next many weeks I hope to share some of those reflections here. Today I want to share two things that came up for me and one leads into the other.
I want to ask our churches in this Conference to seriously consider waiting until 2021 to return to their sanctuaries for worship. I am not making this ask just because I believe that the unknowns of COVID-19 makes it unsafe to consider returning too early. I am also not asking this just because it pains me to think that our communities of faith will be divided or members will feel excluded because they cannot safely return yet.
I ask this because I believe making a decision now to not consider returning to our sanctuaries until 2021 will free up precious time for us to focus on the other virus that we are dealing—that we have been dealing with for 400 years—COVID 1619. Instead of spending time every month debating if now is the time and what safety measures still need to be put into place, we can engage in the hard work of addressing white privilege, dismantling white supremacy and racism, working for equity and justice and co-creating the new ministry that God has revealed to us through these months of sheltering in place and the movement for racial justice that has reached all of us in new and profound ways the past couple of weeks.
And that brings me to the other thing that came up for me that I lift up as an example of the kind of work I am doing in my own life so I can better show up with all of you in this sacred work. The other day during my 8 minute and 46 second time of silence, I started thinking about the concept of “whiteness.” When we say someone is black or brown, we are referring to their skin color. Very few of us who check the “white” box on ethnicity forms would call our skin color white.
A couple of years ago I was at the PAAM Convocation and a dear friend said, “Well, peach people like you…” I looked at her for a moment, confused. And, then I burst out laughing. She was right. In the crayon-box of life, my skin is a lot closer to peach color then it will ever be to white.
White is a construct. It was created to define who holds the power and privilege in a dominating society. It was created for bonded labor that came to the United States and had to work to get out of debt. The white construct allowed these labors to feel superior to newly arrived slaves from Africa. The owners were worried about an uprising if the laborers and the slaves, both desperate for basic human rights and dignities joined forces. If bonded laborers received benefits for being “white” they would feel superior to slaves and the owners could better control all of them.
I am white by a definition that was created to protect the wealthy and powerful in a dominating society that holds a single narrative as the only reality that counts. Anything that happens that doesn’t fit with what we expect from that narrative must be discredited, claimed as untrue, not believed. The cost to me as a person who shares many of the aspects of that single narrative is that my authentic and beautiful story and history is not told or shared because the culture I grew up in encouraged me to focus on how similar we are all—how connected we all are. It allowed me to call a story or reality I don’t understand as “weird” or “different.” It taught me that it’s ok to be so absorbed in my own story, my own reality, that I should expect that everyone shares the same reality as I do and if they don’t, the problem must be with their story, not mine.
People who do not share in the single narrative of society have to navigate both their own authentic story with the story that the dominating society has deemed THE narrative. The white construct is as fragile as a house of cards. If we begin to truly listen to someone else’s story and learn the truth and reality of what we have for four hundred years ignored, our house of cards will topple.
My hope and prayer is that this is what is happening today. The house of cards is falling. As people of faith, we have an important role to make sure that happens. We are learning that we are not white. Instead, we are infected with a virus that is not new but is also deadly. As a peach person, I have been infected with the COVID-1619 virus for four hundred years. There is a vaccine, but unfortunately, it takes a lot more work than just getting a shot.
- It requires one (or many) conversations with a Person of Color to hear their story; to hear of their experiences in our society and world.
• It requires reading books by Authors of Color. It requires watching movies like “The Hate You Give.”
• It requires reading about the deaths of Black people for doing things that those of us with privilege take for granted. (https://demcastusa.com/2020/05/29/i-have-privilege-as-a-white-person-because-i-can-do-all-of-these-things-without-thinking-twice/ ).
• It requires that we read White Fragility, not because we think we already understand privilege and fragility but because there is always something more we need to understand about our privilege and what will be required to dismantle white privilege and white supremacy.
• It requires that we show up for protests now and we commit to showing up for protests and events that will happen in the future.
• It requires not just showing up for protests but that we show up in relationships. Silence in the face of bigotry and racism is equally brutal.
• It requires expanding your circle of relationships beyond those who share the same story or skin color. Who are your neighbors? Who are the people you call friends and why? Do you know their story? How has their story shaped your view of the world?
The time is now. Many of us understand a lot with our heads. We are being invited to embody that knowledge throughout our entire being so we can understand it in a new way. I envision a Conference-wide commitment to conversations within our churches and among all of us in the wider church. These conversations and commitment to action has the potential for transformation and co-creation. I pray you will join me.
On Monday evening, the POTUS stood before our grieving country. Viruses are killing us (COVID, racism, militarism, materialism, environmental degradation), people are demanding justice, and grief is wracking us. What he gave us was a blustering speech on “law and order” and a blasphemous photoshoot where he held a bible upside down, without even a prayer, or a word of hope. Moments earlier he had ordered security officers to deploy teargas on peaceful protestors to clear them away.
If this is the image of Christianity that we worship, then I am not a Christian.
While we have made meaningful progress in our past toward freedom and equality
for all, we have taken that progress for granted and are losing ground.
Pastor and activist, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reminded us recently that since lots of white people seem eager to invoke Dr. King’s legacy to condemn ongoing protests, it’s worth revisiting what he actually said in his speech called “The Other America” given on April 4, 1967:
It is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
We have much work to do to embody the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of. Today we repeat a cycle of pain and grief that we’ve known before and must learn once more. White supremacy is a sin that will not stand.
We have no “status quo” or middle ground here: you are either anti-racist, or you are racist. You are either actively working against racism, or you are complicit in upholding it. Being polite or “not political” is not an option. Either you believe we were all made in God’s image, beloved by our Creator, and meant to see God in the face of one another (Genesis 1:27), or you believe whiteness is better than the rest. Remember, that Jesus was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew.
Thank you to so many of you, for sharing resources about how we can transform the system of police violence, learn more about our own implicit bias as “white people”, support young protestors of color, through prayer vigils, learn more about the poor people’s campaign, support Nueva Esperanza and Iglesia de Presbyteria with badly needed food, and support the efforts of the NAACP to ensure that people, particularly people of color, are not arbitrarily removed from voting rolls in swing states.
With love, and see you on Sunday! Pastor Laurie
Prayer:
Wake me up, Lord, so that the evil of racism finds no home within me. Keep watch over my heart, Lord, and remove from me any barriers that may oppress and offend my fellow humans. Fill my spirit, Lord, so that I may build your kin-dom of justice and peace. Clear my mind, Lord, and use it for your glory. Remind me, Lord, that you said, “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Amen. ~ adapted from a prayer in For the Love of One Another
These next two weeks, our talented music director, Gabrielle Lochard, is taking a few weeks of well deserved rest. We are blessed to have with us, our member Ken Medema, leading us in music.
The Cross and the Lynching Tree
A Requieum for Ahmaud Arbery – Webinar
Sunday, May 31, 3PM
Hi Visitors and Members,
I thought you’d be especially interested in this upcoming webinar on dismantling racism, in light of the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd. The reflections are based upon the writings of late great
American theologian, specializing in black liberation theology, Dr James Cone, from Union Theological seminary. In his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Cone draws connections between the means of execution of the innocent Jesus 2,000 years ago and the ongoing executions of innocent black men in this country. Please share widely!! I’ve registered! I loved Dr Cone, and loved his courses in Black Liberation and womanist theology.
The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Join a national conversation sponsored by the United Church of Christ about how Christians can be actively involved in dismantling racism. Learn more about the webinar HERE. Register for the webinar here.
Peace to you,
Pastor Laurie
Strengthen the Church Offering
Ongoing starting now through Sunday, June 7
The Strengthen the Church offering supports the UCC in fulfilling its commitment to create a just world for all by investing in new ministries and practices that meet the emerging needs of local communities. As God calls our congregations to be the church in new ways, your generosity will plant new churches, awaken new ideas in existing churches and develop the spiritual life in our youth and young adults. Our congregation will receive the Strengthen the Church offering on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020. See this video for more information. or read more here
Ways to donate to Skyline and to the
Strengthen the Church Campaign:
- Write a check and mail it to the office at 12540 Skyline Blvd, Oakland, 94619 (they are deposited weekly) If the check is for Strengthen the Church write that in the memo field
- Use the Quiks smartphone app for a secure ACH transfer and low fees (read more below about security). After the initial setup, you can easily make donations with a click or two, or set it up for repeat donations. To get started donating, click here! Read more about online giving here/. You can donate to Strengthen the Church here, too.
- Use your own bill pay system through your bank. Contact the office manager for the routing and account numbers.
Click for a little bit more about Quiks
Thank you for investing in our community! If you have questions about Quiks, contact Nancy Montier, 510-531-8212, office@skylineucc.org.
Thank you for your donations, and the extra steps it takes to mail it in or learn a new application. We are blessed by your love and presence.
