A Message from the Ministers #OrlandoUnited
Dear Old South Church in Boston,
Orlando. A catastrophe. We are reeling. How are you? What is happening for you? Inside of you?
We are rent asunder by the magnitude of the hatred and the unthinkable violence that has taken so many young, gay lives. We are anguished that a place of sanctuary was so brutally violated. It hits home. It hits at the heart of who we are.
How are you? What is happening for you? Inside of you?
On Sunday at First Worship and Festival Worship we rained down prayers upon Orlando and the victims and the grieving and the traumatized and the healers. We prayed and wept and shared our disbelief.
Since Sunday morning the news has only gotten worse. Since Sunday morning many of us have participated in, and been ministered to by, great gatherings on the Boston Common, in Copley Square, at City Hall. A swelling, inarticulate groaning of disbelief and wrenching grief.
Since Sunday morning the Old South Church clergy have been working among ourselves and with interfaith and ecumenical partners to continue to plan opportunities to gather and grieve, pray and eat, and sing and love in holy defiance of hatred and violence, exclusion and violent persecution.
Here is some of what we have been planning:
ORLANDO: AN INTERFAITH SHARING OF LAMENT, SOLIDARITY, AND HOPE
Wednesday, June 15th, 7:00 pm, Emmanuel Church and Central Reform Temple, 15 Newbury Street
The Gay Men’s Chorus will lift their voices as only they can and Old South Church will participate in a tender service gathering Christians, Jews, and Muslims to pray and sing and mourn together.
PRAYER VIGIL AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA, ISLAMAPHOBIA, AND RACISM
Wednesday, June 15th, 7:00 pm, Bethel AME Church, 40 Walk Hill Street in JP.
One year ago, we gathered in Bethel’s sanctuary in response to the horrific violence committed at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, SC. On Wednesday, we will hold vigil at the intersection of three wounds: one year since Charleston, one week after the murder at the Burke High School, three days after the massacre in Orlando.
PARTY FOR ORLANDO
Thursday, June 16th, 6:00 pm, Old South Church
We will transform Jazz Worship on Thursday into a space to defy the power of hate. With the help of musicians from Boston’s own Club Café we will sing beloved ballads, eat as much as we please, share communion, and listen to some of our own LGBT members share about where they are in processing Sunday’s tragedy. You will want to sing with us, sing through your tears: It's Raining Men, Dancing Queen, Respect, We Are Family, Let's Hear It for the Boy, Born This Way, Amazing Grace. We choose to love and dance and show our rainbow colors in defiance of all that would stifle these.
Additionally, our plans for First Worship and Festival Worship have been reshaped in response to the pain we all feel. We will sing some of Christianity’s most defiant and noble hymns, because when more than now do we need to sing A Mighty Fortress is Our God?
Come what may, we will neither change nor mute God’s message of love and radical inclusion. No, we embrace it all the more tightly. We will not be shaken in our resolve that this witness is imperative. Lives are at stake. And so we declare our resolve to rededicate ourselves and our church to the good news of God’s love for all people.
While we have been working to plan services for the whole community, your pastors are aching to hear your story. If you are feeling the need to talk or process or cry, reach out to us and we will make time to sit with you one on one.
How are you? What is happening for you? Inside of you? We hope and pray that everyone is finding a place to process the immense pain of this season of tribulation and terrible sorrow.
God help us.
Nancy, John, and Anthony