It’s a Sacred Week: Thursday’s Faith Calls for Care and Resilience

Rev. Fletcher Harper

April 2020

It’s been four weeks now since we’ve started the regular Faith Community Calls for Care and Resilience during this global crisis. Thousands of us have come together for a spiritual break in these hard times, and to find ways to build deeper community.

This week is sacred for Jews and Christians with Passover and Easter celebrations. And even though we can not be physically in our temples and churches, we can be together, nonetheless.

“The message of Easter brings us comfort in times of crisis, because it meets us in the midst of our fear and dread,” said Annette Kurschus, President of the Protestant Church of Westfalia, Germany. Rabbi Schwartz, who spoke on one of our recent Faith Community Calls, said: “The single most important line of the Passover seder is: "In every generation each person must see themselves as having gone out from Egypt.”

The hope and liberation that Passover and Easter represent--the care and love for those who are struggling in a grossly inequitable world--is why we come together every week. To create Communities of Care and Resilience where we look out for each other, and together fight for the liberation for all of us.

Please join us this week and every Thursday at either 11 am or at 4 pm New York Time. (You can find your local time here). The call repeats at these two different times to accommodate more of our GreenFaith members around the world.

We are joined every week by a faith leader who hosts the spiritual reflection. This week’s host is Rev. Dr. Chad Rimmer of the Lutheran World Federation . Dr Rimmer has worked with refugees and immigrants, served in Israel/Palestine and in Senegal, and currently advocates on global climate change efforts at the Federation. A theologian and pastor, Chad is also a biologist.

For each call, we spend the first 30 minutes in spiritual reflection, and then break into smaller groups for 30 minutes to deepen our relationships. There, we’ll also share helpful tools for creating Communities of Care and Resilience.

We look forward to being with you during this sacred week and in weeks to come.

P.S. In the last two weeks, you’ve generously shared the poems, prayers, and music that give you solace during this time. We curated and compiled them here: Spiritual Resources for Care and Resilience in the Time of Coronavirus . We hope they bring you some comfort.