A Letter to My Fellow Exiles

Guest preacher Jonathan “Pastah J” Brooks unpacks Jeremiah 29 for us, drawing on lessons gleaned from living and pastoring in the same Chicago neighborhood of Englewood that he grew up in. [Jeremiah 29:4-7] Our confession was “Morning Poem,” by Mary Oliver, who passed away this week. Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches — and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead — if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging — there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted — each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.