Readings for Reflection: December 2016
from the Committee on Ministry and Counsel

Drawing from my experience as a believer, I began writing psalms that originally were for The Holy One's eyes alone. My book Psalms in Search of Peace and Justice is scheduled to be published as the first of two illustrated volumes. Nancy Marstaller, a member of Durham Friends Meeting, is the illustrator of the first volume. The release date should be within the month. The psalm that appears below was begun in meeting for worship at Ann Arbor Friends Meeting on November 13, 2016.
                                                                                                      ~ Dwight Wilson



PSALM 160

We hear Your assignment
even when we feel like
lashing out in hatred.
We are the people
who are called to love.
Who among us answers
is anybody's choice.

Love cannot be flavored
with contempt and remain.
Love cannot be powered
with negative actions
yet foster positive
change, healing deep divisions.
Love's opposite is not
a righteous anger,
an emotion required
when oppression exists.

Evil doing's fraternal
twin is complacency,
that which contents itself
with silence and whines
when the winds of hate
are tossing lives around
as though might alone
justifies viciousness.

Your voice is a hard line.
"Stand as though you hear.
Walk as though you care.
Run as though you'll win.
And in all things recall
love is the best humans have
to offer the world."

Let this be our song.
May we dance it with joy.
May those who are doubting
our sincerity
learn we won't surrender.


All Readings for Reflection