Keep awake.
—Matthew 24.42
It is already the moment
for you to wake from sleep.
—Romans 13.11
We are awake to the coming of Christ
and the Reign of God,
which is not a private matter,
but a transformation of society.
We rouse ourselves from the sleep of apathy,
from the mindless coma of denial. We waken.
We are awake to the coming of justice,
and awake to the many forms of injustice
Jesus comes to make right.
We are awake to the suffering around us,
aware of greed and racism and violence,
how it works, where it moves,
attentive to how it hurts and how it may be healed.
We are awake to the ways justice breaks in among us,
alert to ways Christ is born among us,
ways God works grace in the midst of our evil;
we are awake to hope, and trusting in that hope.
This is what Jesus means by keeping awake.
This is what the Black community has meant
by “staying woke.” They are the same.
We do not let others take that from us.
We don’t give in just because they’re terrified of the word.
We stay with hope, stay with being aware.
We stay woke.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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