Bishop Vashti McKenzie has started her own project to inspire gratitude during COVID-19. The aptly named Gratitude Project focuses on inspiring feelings of gratitude, inspiration and joy to combat anxiety amid COVID-19.
“I’m often asked, ‘How do you stay positive in a crisis?’ The truth is that the pool of pessimism will call my name before the porch of positivity invites me to sit down,” said Bishop McKenzie in a news release. Bishop McKenzie serves as the 117th elected and consecrated bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was the first woman elected to episcopal office in the more than two centuries history of the denomination. “How you start your day is important. I practice my spiritual disciplines daily whether through prayer, praise, study, meditation, worship, fasting and more. I read devotionals or a book, and use various apps like Abide and Calm.”
McKenzie has partnered with April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington, D.C. bureau chief for American Urban Radio Network; Carla Harris, renown financial expert and senior client advisor managing director at Morgan Stanley; Sybrina Fulton, founder of The Trayvon Martin Foundation; and American gospel musician Earnest Pugh. She’s encouraging everyone to send their gratitude moments in to be shared via social media. You can find additional words of gratitude at http://thisisyourwakeupcallonline.com and on Bishop Vashti’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
“I’m inviting everyone to join me in a special Gratitude Initiative: pray a gratitude prayer daily; write at least two things about what you’re grateful for, whether in your journal or recorded on your computer, tablet or cell phone; and share what you’re grateful for online or on social media,” said Bishop McKenzie in a news release. “Let’s get this gratitude train going and keep it going! You have to work for it, so love your neighbor as yourself. Let’s be partners in hope, carriers of optimism and purveyors of joy!”
We’ve seen the local and national news and, like you, our timelines and newsfeeds are filled with sad videos. However, it is important that we keep in mind that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. And even when times get hard, it is important to remember that God is always in control. So, with that being said, our staff has provided some brief words of encouragement that we have found to be helpful during difficult times. Stay strong!
1. Things are never as bad as they seem.
2. Let every challenge make you better, not bitter.
3. Be patient.
3. As long as there’s breath in your body, there’s still hope.
4. God’s got this!
5. It’s o.k. to cry. Just remember that God will wipe away our tears in the midst of our pain.
Daniel Hoskins with guns deposited at the Gregg County Courthouse, in Longview, Texas, following a race riot during the Red Summer. (Library of Congress)
Many people died during the summer and fall of 1919 because of race riots in cities across the country that occurred in more than three dozen cities, including Chicago and a rural county near Elaine, AK. In Chicago, from July 25-August 3, a race riot was ignited when a black teen was stoned to death after crossing an invisible boundary between a segregated part of the Chicago beaches. The riot left 38 people dead, more than 500 injured, and 1,000 black families homeless when their homes were burned down. In Elaine, AK, five whites and twenty-five to fifty Blacks were killed after black sharecroppers attended a farmer’s union meeting to get better pay for their cotton crops. A shooting incident at the meeting escalated into mob violence because of tense racial relations and increasing concern about labor unions at the time, according to The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.
Online Resources About the Summer of 1919
A digital archive, map, and timeline of riots and lynchings across the United States in 1919
The Chicago History Museum and the DuSable Museum of African American History come together to remember the historic events of the summer of 1919. Featuring artists and historians, this event recalls the 1919 race riots that forever changed Chicago’s sociopolitical atmosphere. As we reflect on their tragic legacy, we honor the life of Eugene Williams and others affected by police brutality and segregation.
Meet at Margaret T. Burroughs Beach, 3100 South Lake Shore Drive
Free and open to the public. No RSVPs needed.
SCHEDULE
MCs:
Nancy Villafranca – Chicago History Museum, Director of Education
Erica Griffin – DuSable Museum, Director of Education
3:00–4:15 p.m.
Welcome
Julius L. Jones
Lethal Poetry, After School Matters, DuSable Museum
Momma Kemba as Ida B. Wells
Avery R. Young
Red Clay Dance Company
4:15–5:00 p.m. FLOAT
FLOAT by Jefferson Pinder and A.J. McClenon is a simple act in the remembrance of the riots of that summer a hundred years ago. Over 100 participants will peacefully drift across a historic invisible racial barrier using inflatables, reactivating and reclaiming a site of violence. While the participants are floating in the lake, at the exact time in which Eugene Williams was stoned to death in the water, a soundscape will draw the participants and the audience into a shared meditative moment.
Even I ask myself: How can someone who lives with depression like such a depressing time of the church year?
Lent is my favorite liturgical season. I’m not exactly sure why.
I did and did not grow up understanding that many Christian churches follow something called a church calendar. My early years were spent in black Baptist churches that celebrated Easter and Christmas as holy days, but large swaths of spirituals, Sunday school and a row of black-suited deacons in-between.
In Catholic elementary school, I learned about Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Trinity Sunday and All Saint’s Day. I thought these were Catholic-specific things. Like confession and rosaries and the puffy white dress for first communion in second grade. Things I learned about, but couldn’t be a part of. Because I wasn’t Catholic. My parents said that I didn’t have to “give up” anything for Lent, if I didn’t want to.
This is how many people think of Lent. It’s this season before Easter where we focus on the sacrifice that Jesus makes for us on the cross. To honor this sacrifice, we too should experience a measure of sacrifice. Many people deny themselves of something. The proverbial chocolate. A bad habit. Foods filled with butter and sugar – that must be eaten up on Fat Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras). Some people understand these sacrifices as a kind of spiritual practice. These are ways to focus our energy and intent more upon our relationship wit the divine.
Other people decide to “take something on.” By picking up a good habit, being more who they are called to be, giving a good service to the world around them, they develop a spiritual practice that engages them more deeply in the world around them.
Either way, it is a time of spiritual introspection that is traditionally focused on the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
Do people who live with depression really need more introspection? I mean, isn’t that part of our challenge? That we are too internal. That our thoughts turn in on themselves – sometimes betraying us, or making us think the worst things about ourselves. If we struggle to make it from one day to the next, need we sacrifice any more of our selves? Can we give any more than we are currently giving? Should we really spend forty days focusing on sacrifice and death?
I think I’m into Lent for Ash Wednesday. I like the ashes. Not because they remind me of my mortality. I’m well aware of that. I like them because of the verse in the 61st chapter of Isaiah. The first verses are repeated by Jesus in the 4th chapter of Luke. Words of a calling to liberate others. The third verse indicates that God also calls Isaiah to comfort those who mourn and “give a crown of beauty for ashes.”
I like this song that comes from these verses:
I understand a life of ashes. I understand grief that lasts long past the time of mourning. I understand how it is to feel as if everything I touch is crumbling. I understand the constant readjustment of expectations and abilities based on a crippling I-can’t-do-this-right-now state of being. I understand ashes.
In my early days in ministry, I discovered beauty in them. The ashes for Ash Wednesday services are traditionally burned from the palms used on Palm Sunday. Members of my church brought in the single palm strip they had saved from nearly a year prior. My pastor, decked in barbecue style apron and oven mitt, placed them in a large foil tray and lit them on fire. He tossed them until they became ash and used them to place a cross on our foreheads. Soon enough, the service was over, the congregation had left, and the ministered cleaned the sanctuary. As we left, my pastor whispered to me. “Come back early in the morning. Trust me.” Using my key, I returned at 6:30 am Thursday morning to a strong sweet pungency that hung invisible over the chairs, altar, hallway and musical instruments. All those ashes, given time, smelled amazing! It was … beautiful.
And I like that there are openings to find beauty in ashes. Lent gives me the chance to look for those opportunities. It gives me a season – every year – to turn over rocks, crouch down and look under the bed, sweep together the remnants of my last year, of my life, of the current day in search of whatever beauty may be there. It’s my chance to look for the life that can be found in the midst, or something after, death.
Last Lent, I led an online reading group through my book Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression. I decided that this would be my Lenten practice. Every year, I hope. By sharing my own frustrations, struggles and small victories, I find flashes of grace. I invite you to join me on this journey.
Find more information at www.NotAloneReadingGroup.com
Note: Monica A. Coleman is hosting an online reading group this Lent through her book, Not Alone. Participation includes the eBook of Not Alone, daily inspirational emails, vegan recipes (for those who may give up meat), a resource list and a weekly conference call with the author. Learn more information here. Readers of this blog are eligible for a raffle for one FREE participation. See the information below to enter. This giveaway runs from midnight to midnight on February 28th. Winner will be chosen randomly and notified with 48 hours of the end of the raffle.
Monica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions and Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology in southern California. An ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Coleman has earned degrees at Harvard University, Vanderbilt University and Claremont Graduate University. She has been featured as an expert in religion and mental health on NPR, blogtalkradio, BeliefNet.com,PsychCentral.com, Huffington Post and HuffPo Live. She blogs on faith and depression at www.BeautifulMindBlog.com. She is the author or editor of five books, including Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression – a 40 Day Devotional.
I did and did not grow up understanding that many Christian churches follow something called a church calendar. My early years were spent in 
In my early days in ministry, I discovered beauty in them. The ashes for Ash Wednesday services are traditionally burned from the palms used on Palm Sunday. Members of my church brought in the single palm strip they had saved from nearly a year prior. My pastor, decked in barbecue style apron and oven mitt, placed them in a large foil tray and lit them on fire. He tossed them until they became ash and used them to place a cross on our foreheads. Soon enough, the service was over, the congregation had left, and the ministered cleaned the sanctuary. As we left, my pastor whispered to me. “Come back early in the morning. Trust me.” Using my key, I returned at 6:30 am Thursday morning to a strong sweet pungency that hung invisible over the chairs, altar, hallway and musical instruments. All those ashes, given time, smelled amazing! It was … beautiful.
Monica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions and Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology in southern California. An ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Coleman has earned degrees at Harvard University, Vanderbilt University and Claremont Graduate University. She has been featured as an expert in religion and mental health on NPR, blogtalkradio,