The Clay Is Still Wet: Refusing Despair

Does the future feel inevitable to you? With authoritarianism, deportations, and relentless bad news, it's easy to believe everything is already decided—that we're just watching a slow collapse. Despair can start to feel rational, even responsible. But here's the problem: when we decide the future is sealed, we're actually letting ourselves off the hook. If nothing matters, why bother? This talk explores an ancient text about a potter and clay that offers a radically different perspective: the future isn't fixed. It responds to what we do. Drawing on voices from James Baldwin to Fannie Lou Hamer, the sermon makes the case that your spiritual life isn't separate from your activism—prayer is part of the work, not what you do after the "real" work is done. Whether you're carrying personal regrets or political despair, this message insists: the wheel is still spinning. Your past isn't your destiny, and neither is your nation's.