Sunday
Like most of us, the prophets started not only with judgmentalism and anger but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others. Then, they move from that anger and judgmentalism to a reordered awareness in which they become more like God: more patient like God, more forgiving like God, more loving like God.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
There was a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart to them. We call them prophets, and every religion needs them.
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain.
—Mirabai Starr
Wednesday
There are plenty of prophets among us now in every church and society, and it is vitally important that we listen to them, support them, and protect them. Often, they are not formally aligned with religion, yet they are deeply influenced by its deepest values.
—Richard Rohr
Thursday
Countering extraction, force, and separation, the prophets lifted up trust, right relationship, and becoming. In prophetic understanding, these three qualities embodied the way of faithfulness to Living Presence, the way of aliveness.
—Nahum Ward-Lev
Friday
Historically, the prophets often enact strange things—out of the box of what is deemed normal or acceptable in their society. Their wisdom frequently comes from their lived experience on the margins, and, time and time again, they are misunderstood.
—Cassidy Hall
Week Six Practice
The Cost of Prophecy
Our responsibility is to tell you the truth. But since you were never told the truth, you will believe it a lie. Lies are more affectionate than truth and embrace with both arms.
—Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets
Jesus said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
—Luke 13:34–35
Inspired by Jesus’ warning to the people of Jerusalem, poet and CAC staff member Drew Jackson wrote this poem that honors the cost of prophecy:
There is a lineage of those whose blood fills
the streets
of cities and countrysides—prophets who
have spoken truth
only to find their lips kissed with the blunt
force
of thrown stones. They knew their end
before they began,
and still they continued. Fire in the bones
cannot be contained.
Handcuffs and shackles cannot restrain
their message.
More than by their shouts, we know them by
their tears—
salt dried on their cheeks from years of
endless weeping.
Many of their names have been swept away
by the winds
of history. It is the winners who write the
accounts,
yet the ground bears witness.
Reference:
Drew Jackson, “A Lament for the Prophets We’ve Killed,” in Touch the Earth: Poems on the Way (InterVarsity Press, 2023), 82. Used with permission.
Image credit and inspiration: Eddie Kopp, Untitled (detail), 2017, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Prophets break things down in order to make room to create something new.
