The Discipleship of Dorothy Day
And today's Friday Nudge: Look for Holy Serendipity
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Friday Nudge: Look for Holy Serendipity
Friends, I had an amazing experience yesterday at Parliament Hill! I was there for my weekly climate prayer vigil. I was alone for the first ten minutes; a friend was due to join me a bit later. A woman approached me and asked if this was where the Mennonites were meeting. She explained that she was joining a group of Mennonites travelling from Kitchener, Ontario to participate in a time of prayer and singing hymns to their MP in Parliament in support of a ceasefire and peace in Gaza.
She had come over to me because in addition to my Climate Prayer Vigil sign (and maybe my religious garments?) I was wearing my rainbow keffiyeh! I explained what I was doing, and invited her to pray with me. We then prayed together for effective climate action in Canada.
A few minutes later my friend Michael showed up, and then several other people, wearing keffiyehs, began walking toward us. I said hello and explained why I was there, and how thrilled I was to meet them! They apologized to me, thinking that they would be overshadowing the vigil. Not at all! I exclaimed and said that at 12:30, when their event was to begin I would join them, too. We then all prayed together, for climate action and peace in Palestine, and for the recognition that genocidal violence, war, and the climate emergency are related to one another. I ended the prayer with “None of us are free until all of us are free. AMEN.”
Later, once the larger group of Mennonites from Kitchener, Ottawa, Sudbury, and elsewhere had gathered near the MPs’ offices in the West Block, I joined them in singing and praying for peace in Gaza. We raised our voices on a sunny and cold day, people of faith from across the province, through the power of the Holy Spirit. I know that God was listening; I pray that the people in power to take action for peace in Gaza were listening too.
What a powerful experience it was! I called the moment Holy Serendipity, one of the many ways that the Holy Spirit shows up and empowers us to pray and act for justice.
This is your Friday Nudge, my friends: I want you to pay attention and notice where the Holy Spirit, or shall I say Holy Serendipity, is showing up in your life! Where is the synchronicity, the unexpected moments, the unlikely things that are happening all around you, that point to the presence of God in the world?
Learn more about the Ontario branch of the Mennonite Central Committee, which organized this trip to Ottawa, here.
Essay: The Discipleship of Dorothy Day
In our third essay in this series on understanding what discipleship is in relation to the climate emergency, I wrote about the dynamics of discipleship, the way that belief, language and action relate to one another our discipleship. Haven’t read the essay yet? Find it here.
To better understand this idea, I want to ground it in the examples of Christians who have lived lives of radical discipleship for the sake of others. These are brief snapshots of Christian figures in our collective social and political history who practiced radical discipleship of love, care, compassion, and justice toward others so that we can learn from their example for our discipleship in the climate emergency.
If you want to learn more about discipleship in a climate emergency, and especially about how your discipleship works, this is your chance! This series is available to paid subscribers. To upgrade your subscription, click here:
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