Subtitle: Making (re)connections…
Re (again) + member (from the Latin, membrum, a part). To remember, literally, is to unite separate parts and, generally understood, to bring to mind.
Paul…(t)o Timothy, my beloved child…I remember you constantly in my prayers.[1]
Timothy (his name, from the Greek, Timotheos, meaning “honoring God”), a missionary companion of the Apostle Paul, was of Jewish and Greek ancestry.
In this aspect of his being, Timothy represents…embodies a union of peoples. This union honors God who created all humankind. This union is what I pray always to remember.
Thus, of all my sisters and brothers in our human family, I strive to remember the forgotten. All who systematically, institutionally are excluded. Those who, absent from the tables of deliberation and decision, are the subjects of the debates of the privileged who have the privilege of taking time to reach consensus on how to retain their privileges.
And I, in my living and breathing, wherever I am, whatever I am doing, seek to represent – re (again) + present (make visible) – all I remember.
© 2023 PRA
[1] 2 Timothy 1.1a, 2a, 3b (abridged)
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
What a brilliant, perceptive, cut-right-to-the-heart-of-the-chase line, Paul:
“Those who, absent from the tables of deliberation and decision, are the subjects of the debates of the privileged who have the privilege of taking time to reach consensus on how to retain their privileges.”
My mind’s eye conjures those tables and hears those deliberations and debates. And sees those perpetually and purposefully without seats at those tables standing outside the windows of certain haughty, hallowed rooms watching themselves being methodically discussed and dissected.
Thank you for this clear new image of a significant piece of where and how humanity finds itself mired in 2023.
Love,
Karen
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I am going to just echo what Karen said!! This post is priceless and definitely does cut right to the chase!!
This post reminds me of a dream I had two months ago. In the dream I was leading a board of some sort and there were homeless people and those just released from prison and other folks who had been marginalized their entire lives and all had a voice at the table as well as lots of LEGO bricks and we were about to build a better world!! Just as I was about to start the building project with the large group I woke up!! For the first time ever I was so sorry to have awakened from my dream!! Would it would be great if we all re-membered and that my dream would come true!!
Love
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Loretta, what a grand — aye, the grandest! — dream!
Sadly, for me, Karen, I share a repeatable experience I have had — now, for years, since, some time ago, I was awakened (long before “being woke” entered our communal vocabulary) to take note of absences from the tables of deliberation. When I have been privileged — by virtue of my role and responsibilities — to be welcomed at such tables, I would ask: “Who is not here?” The response, at best, has been corrective. That is, the group being mindful of the lack of representation of varied or certain perspectives or persons, made faithful and fruitful efforts to include. However, this, again, at best, was not the norm. Oft the reply would be to acknowledge the omission, and then to press on with, proverbially, business as usual. And, at worst, to dismiss the inquiry as meddling. And, given my view of the cyclicality of life, hence, the wax and wane of interest in change — and thinking of this moment in our American history when engagement with “the other” is on the decline, plowed under by the rise and reign of factionalism (and ever other “-ism”) — I hear fewer folk asking, “Who is not here?”
Nevertheless, my calling, from above and within, is to re-member.
Love
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