December 22

It is true we are in the midst of an overdose crisis, but first and foremost, we are in the midst of a spiritual crisis, of a moral crisis. We are in a crisis, which fails to recognize the full humanity of our beloved who use drugs, which condemns people who carry their burdens and their joys in ways beyond our ability to understand.  We are in a crisis, when whole people, created in the image of the most divine, are made to feel lowly:  redacted and fractured, reduced to behaviors and pathologies, dehumanized.

Most significantly, we are in a crisis which fails to recognize God in Black and Brown people, which terrorizes Black communities through mass surveillance and brutality called policing, which wields racist drug policy to decimate Black families, which fails to recognize the overdose crisis has long been devastating these communities, which fails to celebrate the lives of people of color, proclaims in silence and through the creation of sacrifice zones that Black deaths are more compelling than Black lives.

We are in a crisis.

But like Mary, we recognize that this crisis is an opportunity.

And like Mary, we know that this crisis is also an obligation.

As people who seek to align ourselves with the higher good, who are accountable to the spirit of perfect justice and love, we are called to participate in the emergence.  The emergence of healing. The emergence of freedom. The emergence of the beloved community.  As Mary teaches us in her song, we too, are called to be life-bringers and world-turners, to magnify, enlarge, amplify the Holy One through our lives and living.

Harm reduction is one way to say, “blessed” to the Marys in our world, the ones brought low by criminalization, stigma, and dehumanization. Through building the beloved community together, we say “blessed.” Through transformative anti-oppression and collective liberation, we call each other “blessed.” Through reciprocity and reconciliation, we sing “blessed.” Mary was sure that in the future, people like her would be claimed as freedom-bringers and called “blessed.”  And it is our obligation to ensure that her prophetic vision of dignity, compassion, of love, this good news of harm reduction, is accessible to all.

Prayer

Inhale: A new future is being born.
Exhale: I/we will be called “blessed.”

Freedom Song

Music: “This Joy that I Have” traditional
Offered by: Erica Powell Wrencher