INVOCATION FOR “A DREAM DEFERRED” AT Emory University and Oxford College, January 22, 2003, by Prof. Thee Smith (Religion Dept.)
In this brief moment of Invocation:
I invite you to notice What it is, or Who it is,
that you regard as Holy or Sacred. Notice what is for you
most True, most Caring, most Liberating, most Powerful.
Have that reality in mind,
and join me in calling for that reality to be fully present to us
in the time that we have together here today.
Join me in spirit, as I now say:
O most endearing presence,
thank you for being a source of enlightenment and transformation.
Thank you for accompanying us as we human beings attempt
to live out our commitments in this world today.
And especially for today:
thank you for the good faith and good efforts
of this College and University community,
as we attempt to face our history and ourselves,
and together find the way to peace and justice, amends and restoration.
May you help us further, we urge you:
to take all the ways that we have wounded and betrayed one another, and, remembering those who have gone before us,
use their experience to make the world better
for ourselves and for those who come after us.
May you help us further, we urge you:
to go through our pain and disappointments with each other.
Help us go through our shame or our rage,
to actually go through all that to the other side. Then
may we get to the place of learning and compassion,
where you await us with all the treasures of truth and reconciliation, and all the resources we need for peace and empowerment.
May you help us finally, we urge you,
no longer to defer the dream of human solidarity.
May we no longer defer the reality of
humans honoring what is holy in other humans.
May we now realize that dream with each other in this room today,
and its reality with all whom we can influence outside this room after today.
AMEN - SHALOM / SALAAM - ASHÉ / THANK YOU & HURRAY!