December 6

The poet who created Psalm 80 was immersed in a community that was in deep distress.  So distant they felt from God’s steadfast love and tender care that they were singing the story of their liberation and flourishing back to God, in the hopes that God might remember, turn back toward them with regard, and restore their freedom and flourishing.  Their agonizing prayer was profound yet simple: remember – regard – restore.

It’s heartbreaking to imagine how many women and birthing people have prayed a similar agonizing prayer since the supreme court overturned their 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion. In whole swaths of the country, people are so distant from full reproductive care that they would have to travel for hundreds of miles to access what they need.  Not only do abortion bans prevent access, they also criminalize those seeking care.  People with low incomes and people of color especially have been arrested and jailed for having a miscarriage or taking pills to have an abortion, or accused of endangering their pregnancies through substance use or other actions.  Its not difficult to imagine a person standing over the sink, kneeling at the side of their bed, pressing their head against the car window, desperately praying, “Restore our rights, our care, our access, O Sovereign God…that we may be saved.”

In some ways, the whole reproductive justice movement could be perceived in this light, as people singing the story of their liberation back to the enslaving paradigms caused by abortion bans and limits on reproductive care.  When we read the abolition vision of SisterSong’s “Visioning New Futures for Reproductive Justice Declaration,” the liberation dream could not be clearer: “Our vision is a future rooted in human dignity and worth, bodily autonomy, joy, love, and rest.” In this season, as we yearn for, await and prepare for the full-bodied expression of God’s love made tangible in our midst, may we join our song with the psalmist and all those who long for reproductive freedom: remember, regard, restore.

Prayer

Inhale: Holiness remembers me.
Exhale:  My story is liberation.

Inhale: Spirit turns her face toward me.
Exhale: I am regarded with dignity.

Inhale: Sacredness is freedom and flourishing.
Exhale: I will be restored.