In our tradition, we do not turn to prayer as an alternative to action. We call our type of prayer "spiritual mind treatment" and we say "treat and move your feet." Today we are doing both. We are moving our feet to City Hall and we are taking our prayer to the streets of Dallas to know the truth of the situation instead of appearances.
We are in a time when the daily news begs us to look down. It pulls us to fear and anger that it is still not safe for black men like Botham Jean to be in their own homes, let alone drive or visit other areas. It pulls us to fear and anger that women like Christine Blasey Ford are publicly attacked and threatened for speaking bravely and truthfully about their experience with sexual assault.
As spiritual scientists, we know that while we do want to acknowledge and feel these feelings, we want to follow them as arrows pointing us to healing, not arrows pointing us to more anger and fear. Dallas is no stranger to the consequences of widespread fear and anger. This is the city in which President John F. Kennedy was murdered as he drove peacefully in a parade.
Today I continue my daily practice of looking up for ten minutes a day to lift my heart, my mind and my thoughts to the hills, from which, the scripture says, "cometh my help...All of my help cometh from the Lord." Psalm 121.
What this means for us in Dallas is that we will catch the greater Truth from outside this world and we will know it for Dallas and for the world. We will stand together in love and hope and a vision of a world in which police officers are trained to love and protect, rather than shoot to kill. We will stand together and know a place where Black men can live, walk, drive, work, move and vote surrounded by love and peace.
By looking up, when others are looking down, by standing together and knowing that Truth, we transform our experience, we dissolve the apparent current realities and we invite in a Greater Reality, one in which a world that works for everyone is possible.
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