Good morning…
“…the people who plant seeds of a movement make a critical decision: they decide to live ‘divided no more,'” observes Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak, the book I will be teaching on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays next semester. “They decide no longer to act on the outside in a way that contradicts some truth about themselves they hold deeply inside. They decide to claim authentic selfhood and act it out – and their decision ripples out to transform the society in which they live, serving the selfhood of millions of others.” (32)
The leading lady in The Color Purple, Celie, leaves behind generations of abuse to follow the colorful call of God upon her unique life. Homeless prayer warrior, Denver Moore, is obedient to God’s encouragement to pick up and carry Miss Debbie’s transformative torch in Same Kind of Different As Me. The first apostles disobey the human authorities and decide to speak freely about the saving power of Jesus. Julie Harlan and Beth Jordan, Laura Deisley and Cathy Smith are four faithful women in our own church family who have chosen to live boldly in the face of death “divided no more,” fully trusting the God who wipes away every tear. These brave, ordinary people are empowered by God to live out a piece of the LORD’s unstoppable plan to gradually redeem all of creation.
Daily we are each designed to choose authenticity, acting on the outside in a way that is congruent with healing truth we hold deeply inside. When we make the critical decision to live “divided no more,” we claim the true self God has planted within us and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we collaborate to transform the entire world.
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us (Ephesians 3:20).
…Sue…
