ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM Written by Ayisha Siddiqa Listen What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight. Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves. To withstand your own end is difficult. The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right. Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet. If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing. What if we convince her to stay? How rare and beautiful it is that we exist. What if we stun existence one more time? When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin with her ruptured belly tags along. Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins and the violent shape of their drinking water. The earth remembers everything, our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies. Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?

  Even the obnoxious seagull was hushed As the tiny child raised her shovel with glee and hurled her new found sand at the sea Perhaps the seagull was somewhere between inquiry and disappointment in his quest for snatched snacks Or, as I choose to believe, even this thief for one brief moment realized the wonder of things The grace in the ordinary The sacrament of the beautiful laughter A delight previously unknown All who witnessed were asperged, if not by sand or splashed salt water, By particles of holiness and wonder which spread not just to the seagull Not just to the witnesses But far beyond Far far beyond

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and welcomes us always. AMEN Sometimes the most wonderful gifts come in small packages! And that may be what is being offered to us this morning in the brief passage from the Gospel of Matthew.   And sometimes there is a complexity to even the shortest of phrases or koans like those of the desert fathers and mothers or of Rumi or of Jesus. Let us pause with the apparent clarity of Matthew’s message of welcome and lift the veil to expose a new intent or meaning. Many have preached on the word welcome and many who have, receive approving nods and glazed affirmation. Of course we are called to welcome. We are called by Jesus over and over in story after story to welcome the marginalized, the broken hearted, the stranger. We are called to welcome the unwelcomed! For we know that if and when we do, we entertain angels, we entertain Christ Christ’s self. Many also focus on the reward part of the passage, the promise of something amazing when one welcom