From our friends and comrades at Mennonite Action.

This Advent, we are remembering the activist and theologian Barbara Holmes. Over her lifetime, Dr. Holmes dedicated her prophetic voice of contemplative wisdom to call us on The Way with the Incarnate Jesus. Jesus is the one who has come, is always coming, and is ever present, transforming us into the Creator’s image and likeness.

Over the years, we have attended to Dr. Holmes’ voice crying out in the wilderness against the unspeakable suffering of human and non-human creation — suffering inflicted by human hands, heads, and hearts of warring madness. Although Dr. Holmes died earlier this year, her prophetic voice and spiritual wisdom lives on, crying out to be heard and heeded.

She writes, “When there is a crisis, it takes a village to survive” because “it is the village that enters into crisis.” In her book, Crisis Contemplation: Healing the Wounded World, Dr. Holmes explains: “Crises open portals of deeper knowing. When the crisis occurs, the only way out is through, so we take a cue from nature and relax into the stillness, depending upon one another and the breath of life!”

In her chapter on “Wounds,” Dr. Holmes proclaims:

Wounds inflicted upon the village pierce the self and soul of us, shatter the I and we of us. We have seen it before, so many times, and yet we are surprised, and unwilling to look into the vacant gaze of systems that decapitate, mutilate, and incarcerate.

We can stop them, you know. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. All we have to do is redirect our resources and repent for the harm that systems have done on our behalf.

We can testify and record with our phones, a sacred and necessary witness, and we can go get the monsters that we have unleashed.  

Confronting the traumatic crisis in Gaza, Mennonite Action is a wounded village acting in solidarity with the Palestinian wounded village. In solidarity with others, we seek survival against genocidal violence fueled by the unconscionable complicity of our countries and churches.

That’s why, during this Advent season, Mennonite Action is calling on participants across the US and Canada to hold Longest Night for Gaza services on December 21, the longest night of the year. By organizing a vigil that provides an outlet for our grief, mourning, prayers, and love for the people of Gaza, we have an opportunity to participate in the work of the village. You can find resources for planning a Longest Night service in our toolkit.

To help us find our way as a wounded village, Barbara Holmes leads us with her poem “What Is Crisis Contemplation?”

At the center of every crisis
is an inner space
so deep, so beckoning,
so suddenly and daringly vast,
that it feels like a universe,
feels like God.

When the unthinkable happens,
and does not relent,
we fall through our hubris
toward an inner flow,
an abiding and rebirthing darkness
that feels like home.

May this Advent deepen our call to Crisis Contemplation with the Coming Christ who has already come for the healing of the world’s wounded villages. While the unthinkable continues to play out in Gaza, may we remember that transformation is possible.