Open Table United Church of Christ

Years of hard work by Africatown supporters, Representative Adline Clarke, Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood-, William Carroll, Councilman, and the Africatown Redevelopment Corp. have culminated in this first home construction in Africatown in 30 years. Congratulations to all the residents of this historic neighborhood and praying that it is just the beginning of a new story for Africatown. Open house tours today and tomorrow from 1-3 pm at 812 Susie Ansley St. and 1121 Newman Lane.

From Merceria Ludgood's September newsletter (Vol 7, No 9) to Mobile County Commission District 1 residents and subscribers:

When I read the news report about the closing of the Black Student Union office at the University of Alabama it was personally disappointing to me. It was not the only student organization negatively impacted by the Alabama law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in public institutions, but it was the one most devastating for me.



The fight to have a place for Black students to gather started more than 50 years ago on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I arrived there as a freshman in August 1970. Black students had been a continuous presence since Vivian Malone and James Hood enrolled in 1963. We had crossed the rubicon of enrollment but the quest to fully integrate an African American presence throughout the university was slow to follow. There was a token presence of Black faculty and staff; courses focusing on African American contributions, social commentary, and political thought were not included in academic offerings. I can remember only one.



Did I mention that my tenure at the University was my first desegregated academic experience? The year I graduated high school was the year the Mobile County Public School System began desegregation efforts in earnest, long after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Education of Topeka, Kansas that struck down the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine. An early dastardly act in that process was the closing of black high schools, forcing those students onto buses headed for the white high schools that survived. But that’s a story for another day.



I became involved in what was then known as the Afro-American Association, the forerunner to the current Black Student Union. We took our grievances to the decisionmakers with no relief. We staged peaceful protests that yielded no results. In May 1971, members of the Association occupied the Administration Building to bring greater attention to what we knew were reasonable requests. That demonstration led to a path forward in addressing our concerns with the University. Dr. David Mathews, President of the University at that time, appointed Colonel Floyd Mann to act as our liaison. The University secured a facility for us that became known as the Afro-American Cultural Center. As part of the Association’s triumvirate leadership team, I worked on that project. Now fast forward more than 50 years and with a stroke of partisan hubris, the Alabama legislature has set back the University of Alabama and other colleges and universities five decades. That huge step back is not in any way diminished because the rosters of varsity athletes include so many Black players. Lose that scholarship or suffer a career-ending injury and they will be among the Black students who are looking for a cultural home.



Black students make up a fraction more than 11% of the almost 40,000-member student body at UA. I believe that it is safe to assume that this generation of Black students and other minorities continue to face many of the same challenges rooted in racism that we faced decades ago. There are more social organizations and affinity groups, but none has the mission of BSU. In interviews with its leaders, they affirm their commitment to its aims. The lack of resources and a gathering place, however, will impair its ability to achieve its goals. That is why we fought so hard to have a presence, a place that was familiar, safe, and a respite from the racism that we endured.



Students of my era fought those fights so our children and grandchildren would be spared them. We believed that each generation would tear down that portion of institutional racism they could accomplish on their watch. Surely 50 years of chipping away should have dismantled it.



Despite our state legislature’s best efforts to enshrine legislation that prohibits the teaching of the atrocities visited upon Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color in this state and their contributions to its development there are generations of white Alabamians throughout this state, indeed this country, who know what legislative and judicial bodies have done to make white supremacy Alabama’s call to arms. They know and they repudiate it. Did I not believe that to my core, at this moment in time, I would feel that all my life’s work was for naught when the sign was removed and the doors to the BSU office were closed for the last time. Dr. Mathews went on to do pioneering research and practice in the area of civic engagement, empowering all voices in the democratic process. We had white allies among students, faculty, and staff at the University and I have had them throughout this work. These are individuals who understand the nature of oppression and its impact on the oppressor. They understand the slippery slope of abuse of power and how it impacts a democracy. This move was intended to “put us [black people] in our place”. Instead, you reminded people that we are not post-racial and must remain vigilant if we do not want to see a return to Jim Crow Alabama.



There are some days that challenge my optimism but it never fails that a young person or an older person wisely reminds me, sometimes by word, other times by deed, that despite the setbacks, the fight to make justice run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream is worth the fight. Battles will be lost, but the war will be won. That assurance brightens even my gloomy days.

Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship is celebrating Climate Justice Revival. Contact Riva Fralick for more information. [email protected]

The countdown is on! Our second annual Wig Walk is just 18 days away—have you secured your tickets yet?

https://secure.givelively.org/event/prism-united/2024-wig-walk/2024-wig-walk

Get ready for an unforgettable afternoon filled with fun, laughter, and community spirit. We’re thrilled to welcome back all your favorite venues from last year, plus three exciting new additions that you won't want to miss!

✨ Alchemy Tavern
✨ B-Bob's
✨ Braided River Brewing Co. (Registration & After Party Location)
✨ Iron Hand Brewing, LLC
✨ The Merry Widow
✨ Nxt Lvl Skybar
✨ Oyster City Brewing Company
✨ Penton’s Bistro & the King Bleu Corner Bar
✨ POST
✨ Slurp Society

Lost
by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SHOWCASE IN IRVINGTON THIS SATURDAY!!

If you've ever wanted to see an electric vehicle up close, look in the trunk, look under the hood, kick the tires, and talk to its owner, here is your chance!!

Members of the Bay Area Chapter of Drive Electric Alabama will showcase a variety of electric vehicles and be available to talk one-on-one with anyone interested in learning more about
EVs. The EVent, which runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., is free and open to the public.

Love’s Travel Stop is currently in the midst of its annual fundraising campaign for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, with all local donations benefitting USA Children’s & Women’s
Hospital in Mobile.

WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, 9 am.-1 p.m.
WHERE: Loves Travel Stop, 8400 County Farm Rd, Irvington, AL 36544
COST: Free and open to the Public

Underneath the appearance of affluence (for the dwindling number who even have that) what most characterizes the culture of our modern industrial civilization is a severe and growing scarcity of everything that is important for a healthy and resilient human society.

1. The need to belong to and connect with a safe and engaging
community, starting with attachment to one’s mother in the critical first years of life
2. The need for meaning and purpose in one’s life, including meaningful work
3. The need to be valued, appreciated, and heard
4. The need to be relatively positive about the future for oneself and loved ones
5. The need for control and a degree of autonomy over one’s life and work
6. The need to be regularly and closely in touch with the natural world
7. The need for a sense of place and home
8. The need for freedom from chronic stress (financial, physical etc.) and the time and space to recover from it (including getting adequate sleep)
~ Rev. Michael Dowd, Pro Future Faith

Open Table Update 09/04/2024 - https://mailchi.mp/351bc382b5e0/open-table-update-8339745
Our current situation is not simply a problem that can be solved with a brilliant, strategic plan, especially a plan designed by people whose imaginations have been shaped by the values and assumptions of our current suicidal economy and anti-ecological way of life! That's not to say planning is futile: it's just to say we should see our current situation as a super-complex predicament that must be lived through in an evolutionary process. ~ Brian McLaren

It might’ve been being at the beach and seeing a flock of seagulls in flight that suddenly made you aware of beauty in a way you’d never felt it before, or it may have been the first dog that you really knew, loved, and connected with. It helped you think of intelligence that was different than your own, and beautiful in its own unique way. It might’ve been some other scene where you felt sacredness, and holiness, and depth in the natural world. It’s easy for us … to forget that childlike wonder at this beautiful world. We don’t need to put God and nature in competition. Nature is God’s original self-expression.

~ Brian McLaren

The Season of Creation is a special season when we can bring special attention to renew our relationship with God our Creator and all of creation with the worldwide Christian family. While the Season of Creation has not (yet) been adopted officially as a liturgical season, a growing momentum across the Christian faithful has emerged to embrace this time between Sept. 1 (the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation) and October 4 (the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi), as a privileged time to experience the grace of ecological conversion through prayer and action.

Praying With Creation: Come on a nature therapy walk (wherever you are) As the annual Season of Creation begins, Christina Leaño invites you to go on a spiritually guided nature therapy walk with her, whether in the woods or from your phone.

Prayer of the Day:

God of wisdom,

It’s hard to know what to say to a God claimed by those who have wounded us. Can we trust you? We have known what it is to exist in spiritual spaces that are more interested in controlling us than loving us. To have the room turn against us when our beliefs diverge from the group’s. We thank you for giving us an interior compass, an intuition that no longer trusts spirituality that feels like captivity. Free us from those spaces. But as we depart, keep us from relinquishing our own connection to the divine. Help us to approach you slowly in the safety of our own interior worlds before granting another spiritual space access to us. And when we’re ready, guide us into new and safe communities—communities capable of holding our deepest doubts, our beliefs, the fullness of uncertainty, without being threatened. May we approach shrewdly and carefully, for our own protection, as we search for spaces that honor the whole of us.

Ase.

~ Cole Arthur Riley

Join us tomorrow in the parlor for our last discussion of Brian McLaren's "Life After Doom" at 9:30 am, All Saints Episcopal, corner of Government and Ann St.

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then do better."
~ Maya Angelou

"Along the way, you'll realize that all our plans, as important as they are, are less important than an attitude of agile engagement, a commitment to never give up on this f*cked-up world, to keep shining and dancing, whatever scenario unfolds."
~ Brian McLaren, Chapter 21, "We Make the Way by Walking"

In the beginning … God said, “Let us make ha’adam, humankind, in our image and likeness.” So God did. God created humankind in their own image, in the image of God, male and female, God created them. - Genesis 1:26-27 (adapted)

God created humankind ‘male and female’ in Their image. But somewhere along the way in the vascular system of human imagination, an artery got clogged and narrowed. The divine image in Christian art was primarily male. The pronouns only male. The priesthood only male. Politics, the locus of divine power enacted on earth, exclusively male.

It is as if we forgot half of who we are: made in the image and likeness of God, male and female and expanding beyond a simple M-F binary into a multi-dimensional universe of gender. The Divine Feminine was lost, as were so many other images of God. White Jesus, muscular Jesus, or the old man enthroned on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel took up more and more space in our consciousness. God was a man, and by default, men were gods

There have been cracks in the patriarchy along the way. One of those came 175 years ago when Congregationalists ordained the first woman Protestant minister, Antoinette Brown. I stand on her shoulders and many others who cracked the stained-glass ceiling so that I can do what I do with less obstructional s*xism—and so the girls in my church can see someone who looks like them in religious leadership (which, by the way, has positive mental health benefits).

But for the 248 years that the U.S. has been a nation, we have routinely left out of executive political leadership half of the humans made in the image of God. More than half, when we disrupt the dichotomous construction of s*x. Will that change now?

Let me be clear: God endorses no one human being. Throughout the Bible, our God had a very reluctant relationship with monarchs and executive leaders. God is God.

Who does God endorse? The wholeness of humanity, fairly represented, justly cared for. No kings or queens. Just a sacred kin-dom, if we can make it. If we can keep it.

Prayer
God, in the words of Rev. Senator Raphael Warnock: a vote is a kind of prayer for the kind of world we want to live in.

~ Molly Baskette, First Church Berkeley UCC

Yes She Can Somewhere along the way, the divine image was narrowed: only and exclusively male. It is as if we forgot half of who we are: made in the image and likeness of God, male and female and expanding beyond gender binaries.

The betrayal of a belief is not the same thing as ceasing to believe.

—James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Mark your calendar. It is the day we’ve been waiting on! We want Everyone to join us to see the progress being made www.atownrc.com in the Africatown Historic District. See why you should be partnering with our organization to create real and measurable change in one of the most unique communities in the country.

“A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but did not go. Which one did the will of his father?” They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but tax collectors and prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds.” - Matthew 21:28-32 (NRSV)

Moral of the story: People who say yes don’t always follow through. People who say no sometimes do. Doers, not people who only talk a good game, are pleasing to God. Right?

Yes. And no.

Because doing isn’t the only point here. There’s a deeper one in what Jesus says about the first son: “He changed his mind.” And in his reproach of his religious audience: “You didn’t change yours.” Jesus wants us to be doers of God’s will. But he’s equally concerned about our capacity for reconsideration. Maybe more.

What he commends isn’t mere ‘doing.’ It’s convertibility, a willingness to think again, to discover we’re wrong, to reverse course. It seems that a chastened heart may be preferable even to constancy and virtuous doing. Because there’s a sneaky danger in constancy and virtuous doing. It can give the illusion of perfection. Self-righteousness and judgmentalism come with that territory.

But people who change their minds are always undergoing the peculiar suffering of being wrong, swallowing their pride, recalibrating their assumptions and choices. They’re under no illusion of perfection. Humbled and teachable, they’re more likely to be merciful. And for Jesus there’s no other bottom line.

Prayer
Take my made-up mind and give me a changing mind. Make me convertible and merciful, so that I can truly do your will.

~ Mary Luti, UCC Stillspeaking Daily Devotional

https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/change-your-mind-2/?inf_contact_key=5ad33b021b970fe5777109c896b017dd09c74070ac2bf3cfa7869e3cfd4ff832

ORDER, by itself, normally wants to eliminate any disorder and diversity, creating a narrow and cognitive rigidity in both people and systems.

~ Richard Rohr, “Include and Transcend,” Order, Disorder, Reorder (Fall 2020)

Open Table Update 08/28/2024 - https://mailchi.mp/1b682dfff693/open-table-update-8339627
"We are heading into dark times, and you need to be your own light. Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned. Protect the vulnerable and encourage the afraid. If you are brave. stand up for others. If you cannot be brave---and it is often hard to be brave---be kind." ~ Anthropologist and author Sarah Kendzior

Things standing shall fall, / but the moving ever shall stay. —Basava

Brian McLaren describes how Jesus often provoked disruption to move people beyond the status quo:

[There is] a powerful story at the beginning of John’s Gospel: Jesus’s protest in the Temple [see John 2:13–22], when he drove out the merchants of sacrifice and appeasement and then made two outrageous statements. [1] First, he said that God intended the Temple to be a house of prayer for all people (no exceptions), and second, he said that the corrupted Temple would be destroyed and replaced by something new, which would be resurrected in its place….

Jesus continues to use the imagery of disruption (John 3–4). First, he tells a man that in spite of all his learning, in spite of all his status, he needs to go back and start over, to be born again—perhaps the most apt image for disruption ever. Then he tells a woman that the location of worship doesn’t matter at all—which in their day meant that temples were irrelevant. What matters, Jesus says, is the attitude (or spirit) and authenticity (or truth) of the worshipper. Jesus was calling for a radical disruption in his religion, a great spiritual migration, and a similar disruption and migration are needed no less today in the religion that names itself after him.

A later New Testament writer repeated and expanded upon the disruption and migration Jesus was calling for (1 Peter 2:5). The way of life centered in the Temple must be disrupted because God wanted to dwell not in buildings of bricks or stones cemented together by mortar, but rather in human beings—living stones, he called them—cemented together by mutual love, honor, and respect.

McLaren invites us to trust the Spirit’s call to keep moving:
This disruptive revolution, this liberation, this great spiritual migration begins with each of us presenting ourselves, with all of our doubts and imperfections, all of our failures, fears, and flaws, to the Spirit…. You. Me. Everyone. No exceptions.

“The moving ever shall stay,” [twelfth-century Hindu mystic and poet] Basava said. [2] Those words contradict so much of our inherited religious sensibility. “Stay the same. Don’t move. Hold on. Survival depends on resistance to change,” we were told again and again. “Foment change. Keep moving. Evolve. Survival depends on mobility,” the Spirit persistently says. That prompting tells us that the migration we seek is not merely from one static location to another. It is, rather, from one static location to a journey of endless growth.

If you want to see the future of Christianity … don’t look at a church building. Go look in the mirror and look at your neighbor. God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.

Center for Action and Contemplation
[1] In the Synoptic Gospels, the cleansing of the Temple happens a few days before Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion; each Gospel has unique details. See Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; and Luke 19:45–46.
[2] Basava, Vacana 820. See Speaking of Śiva, trans. A. K. Ramanujan (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), 88.
Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (New York: Convergent, 2016), 192–193, 194–195.

It’s Trailblazer Tuesday! We’re proud to present our next honoree: Suzanne Cleveland. After her son came out in the mid 80s, Suzanne co-created a chapter of PFLAG in Mobile to support LGBTQ+ people and their families. Over the years, Suzanne helped parents and other family members along the journey towards full acceptance of their LGBTQ+ loved ones.

In 2007, Suzanne was a recipient of the AQUA “Reaching Out Award” for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Today, she continues to be a local hero for her welcoming spirit and unwavering advocacy.

We’re thrilled for the opportunity to celebrate the incredible life of Suzanne Cleveland.

You can join us in that celebration by attending Come Out Mobile 2024 on October 5th! All proceeds from the event will support Prism United in its effort to create an LGBTQ+ Youth Center for Southwest Alabama. For more information, visit:

https://prismunited.org/calendar/2024-come-out-mobile/

Join us for worship at 10:30 am today in the rear chapel at All Saints.

A word from Diana Butler Bass, The Cottage:

Years ago, I got into a tangle with a woman in the church I attended. I’d developed a practice of standing during the Eucharist — instead of kneeling as was a more conventional posture during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in Episcopal churches in those days.

“Your problem is that you always have to be different! You want to be noticed!” she yelled at me one Sunday. “Don’t you know that we Episcopalians have common prayer? That means we all do the same thing at the same time. Nobody is supposed to stand out — this is common prayer.”

I drew a breath and quietly responded, “Yes, I know. We have common prayer. But not conforming prayer. Holding something in common doesn’t mean that we are all the same. Common, yes. Conforming, no.”

“You shouldn’t stand up during prayer! You’re not special! You have to kneel!”

She walked away.

That unpleasant encounter has stayed with me — and it taught me something important about living with diversity and the larger issues of the common good.

Politics this week has me thinking about the common good. Like common prayer, the common good doesn’t ask us all to conform to some imagined ideal of the perfect citizen. The common good isn’t like residing on the fictional planet of Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time. At first, the place seems peaceful, perfect, and orderly. But it was blanketed with a shadowed conformity, controlled by a central intelligence called IT, that allowed no one to be different or stand out. Diversity and identity were surrendered to alikeness and a brutal homogeneity.

Camazotz was a society of forced conformity through authoritarian means.

Common might mean routine, established, or conventional. But it can also mean shared, public, or social. Common prayer simply refers to prayer offered in public in contrast to private prayer, not some conformist need for particular words or postures. Some faith communities pray publicly using ritual; others pray in public extemporaneously. But both are common prayer, and neither is — or should be — intended to force worshipers into docile submission to some controlling IT.

Common good is the same. To seek the common good is to strive for community — not a Camazotz-style authoritarian sameness. It is a quest for the shared welfare of all people, a society where everyone looks out for everyone else’s well-being without being coerced to surrender one’s own identity. To hold all things in common means to share the goods and struggles of living together without having to be the same. In truth, the common good, genuine community, requires diversity.

Both common prayer and common good are about what we share in public, not about being exactly the same in the space beyond ourselves: Sharing, not enforced sameness or shaming for being different.

And those are the social and political questions I care about: With whom am I — or are we — sharing both the goods and the struggles of life? How do we share? What do we share? Are we sharing fairly? Is everyone invited to the circle of sharing?

When it comes to politics, I rarely ask what is good for me. I ask how I can share. I ask if those around me have a fair share.

In the same way that there is public prayer and personal prayer, I have private questions about political life, too, even if they don’t always drive my voting choices. Questions like: Why am I working hard without getting a fair share? Has someone taken what should be my share? Am I being kept away from a table of sharing? Do I really want to share with others?

Sometimes my personal questions about sharing point to larger, communal ones. Am I being excluded from the goods of society because I am a woman? Because of ageism? Perhaps because of corporate greed or an unfair tax burden? Does my experience indicate a larger, structural injustice of not sharing?

Of course, private and public are not neatly separate spheres. They bleed into each other. But when one is emphasized over the other, we fall into either self-driven individualism in politics or a flattened communalism, both of which can lend themselves to authoritarianism and deprive others of their dignity and freedom.

The path to a mature politics is in the balance — or perhaps it is in the tensions inherent in a sharing society. Sometimes I function as an individual-in-community; at other times, as part of a community comprised of diverse individuals. Personal identity and interconnected community are the tapestry of a loving and just commonwealth. We can strive to balance them, move within both realities, and find the threads to weave individual well-being with the weal of the world.

You might guess that I genuinely appreciated the Democratic convention this week — and was glad that it signaled a better kind of politics. Not because they ticked diversity boxes; not because people quoted scripture; not because leaders addressed my political hobby horses. But because I sensed, amid the production and hoopla, a renewed commitment to the balance and tension of private and public, and of the power of individual stories entwined with the common good. At its best, it wasn’t selfish but insisted that individuals should live their best lives; it wasn’t communalistic but built up a sharing society.

That’s a hard tension to communicate. And an even harder one to achieve. You may disagree with me — you may have heard a different story. Whatever the case, and however imperfectly, I will continue to stand up in the commons — even when someone tells to me to sit down because I’m standing out — for the weal and welfare of every one of us and us all.

In a world where extreme natural disasters are becoming all too common, it can feel overwhelming to know how to tackle the root of the problem: climate change. What can we do? Why should we care?

Washington National Cathedral and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are convening experts in theology, climate science, energy justice and public engagement to discuss how addressing climate change can create a more just and equitable society for all.

All are welcome to join us in-person or online on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 at 6pm CT to explore connections between science, policy, and the theological concepts of Creation Care and Building Beloved Community, which encourage stewardship of Earth’s resources, racial reconciliation, healing, and justice.

Find more information and a registration link here:

https://mailchi.mp/nationalacademies/decarbonization-national-cathedral?e=bda3791b00

You are the only you that has ever lived; your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all the existences and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls….

~ Howard Thurman