Mercy

            My heart is full.  I had the privilege to spend the weekend with a group of women from Greenbelt Community Church in a Women’s Retreat at the Bishop Claggett Retreat Center in Buckeystown, Maryland.  We laughed, we cried, we told stories, we listened to one another, we took time for ourselves, we spent time together.

            Our theme for the weekend was “Mercy”.  We started talking about the passage from Micah 6:8 where the prophet says – what does the Lord require?  The answer is to
“do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”  The word translated as mercy can also be read as kindness.  We talked about what mercy/kindness means to us.  We talked about the times we received mercy/kindness (and how difficult that can be sometimes, including receiving mercy/kindness to ourselves from ourselves).  We talked about ways we, including as GCC, can show mercy/kindness to others.  And we talked about mercy/kindness as a sign of peace.

            There is a Peace Pole on the church’s lawn.  During the Retreat we remembered the events of Hiroshima and the story of a thousand cranes.  We had premade origami cranes, and we signed our given name and the word peace on 150 cranes and strung them on a string.  Those cranes will go from Greenbelt, Maryland to the Children’s Peace Park in Hiroshima where they will become part of the continuing display of cranes at that memorial.

            My heart is full.

Rev. Clara