December on Freedom Road
Holding Joy and Pain
Holding Pain and Joy
I believe that if we're awake in the world, we are always holding some combination of sorrow and celebration of grief and joy. Any particular Shabbat morning when I walk into IKAR and we begin our services, if I'm paying attention there are people in that room whose hearts have been completely shattered. And there are people who've just fallen in love. There are people who've buried loved ones who've died tragically. And there are people who just got pregnant after trying for 15 years. I believe that our hearts are capacious enough to hold both of those experiences at once.
It's very difficult. It's very, very hard to do that. I believe that we can, and we must because allowing ourselves to experience joy is how we get our fuel to sustain through periods of great trial and grief and hardship. And if we cut off our access to joy, and to celebration, then we will be less equipped to actually be present to the heartache. You can't survive forever in a space that is entirely about grief. And this is why I mentioned earlier the house of mourning. When you walk into a house of mourning, you almost always hear laughter. There's a lot of crying, a lot of crying, but you almost always hear laughter.
Because when we remember someone, even if they've died tragically, we remember also what was quirky and wonderful and unusual and hilarious about them. This is why when we go to a Jewish wedding, you hear the sound of shattered glass. At every wedding, a glass is broken under the chuppah, under the wedding canopy. This reminds us that even in this moment of peak joy, when my heart is full, when I'm standing here with my beloved surrounded by a community of people who want to honor this love, we break a glass because the world is difficult, painful, terrible, broken place. And even within this immediate circle of loved ones, there are people with broken, shattered hearts.
And certainly as we expand the concentric circles beyond this one, there is so much pain. To be a responsible human being in the world means not to shut down those news reports of all of those people who are suffering so tremendously right now. But to take it in and to allow our hearts to be broken, and also to affirm that our hearts can also hold hope, because love is also real, and joy is actually a nutrient for our spirits. —Rabbi Sharon Brous from the Freedom Road Podcast Episode
In this Newsletter
Build a Better World: A Learning Community from Freedom Road
Truth-telling is the Work of Right Now: Book Lisa Sharon Harper
Digital Curriculum for The Episcopal Church
Freedom Road was proud to partner with The Episcopal Church African Descent Ministries to design and implement a digital curriculum focused on internalized oppression for the church’s leaders of color! Lisa collaborated with Freedom Road senior consultants, Rev. Dr. Waltrina Middleton, Dr. Claudia Owens Shields, and Rev. René August and they convened a powerhouse panel, including Dr. Reggie Williams, Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Dr. Randy Woodley, and Kat Armas to take a deep dive into the ideas of decolonizing our faith and ourselves.
Where Have All the Prophets Gone?
A call to love and solidarity by Rev. Dr. Waltrina Middleton, a senior consultant with Freedom Road.
Truth-telling is the required path to reconciliation, which can lead to healing, restoration and ultimately, reparations. This is a lesson taught by our siblings from South Africa as they continue to dismantle the ugly residue of a state-sanctioned and government-funded system of apartheid. While we now hail the late President Nelson Mandela as a hero, he once was scorned as a terrorist and disrupter. In fact, his beloved nickname Madiba loosely means “troublemaker.” Yet still, President Mandela and other courageous freedom fighters remained steadfast in their resolve to bear witness to their narratives of suffering and disinheritance.
Read the entire statement on the Community Renewal Society website.
Global Writers’ Group Annual Showcase
Come spend an evening with members of Freedom Road’s Global Writers’ Group. You’ll hear stories, poems, and other pieces around what it means to hold on to hope in turbulent times. Hope is messy, and hope is a call to us because if we have hope that things might get better, that means we have work to do!
Come imagine with us as we seek to write a new world into existence.
Editors, agents, and publishers welcome.
You’ll hear from Lisa Sharon Harper, Deborah Masten, Stephanie Hanrahan, Dasia Olivares, Terri Fullerton, Anna Howard, Steven Wright, Julia Devoney Weaver, and Felicia Melian.
When: January 29th, 2024 @ 8pm eastern US
Build a Better World: A Learning Community from Freedom Road
Have you read one of Lisa Sharon Harper’s books? Or one of the books from our Global Writers’ Group authors? Have you been a part of one of Freedom Road’s Webinars either live or purchased one on demand? We have just launched a learning community on Facebook for anyone who wants to chat with like-minded people about the material they’ve been reading or watching.
Join us today and we will grow together to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly into a better world!
Join the Facebook Group
To make things easier in these difficult times where everything seems to be more expensive, we have lowered our individual pricing on all our courses to make them accessible to more people. And don’t forget there’s a couple of free offerings to get you started as well! Check out our institute page and the course archive now.
Rather read a book? Check out The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can be Made Right or Fortune: How Race Broke my Family and the World… and How to Repair it All both by Lisa Sharon Harper.
Or check out the list of books written in our Global Writers’ Group here.
On the Freedom Road Substack
Ubuntifada
I stood at the Partition Wall in Bethlehem two weeks before Easter in 2016. I wasn’t prepared for how tall it was. It reached to the sky—like the tower of Babylon. It was pure cement—not the steel bars that line the U.S. southern border. Not like the walls that line American prison yards. No. Israel’s Par…
Weeping with Rachel
“A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” (Matthew 2.18, NLT) This is not everyone’s favorite Christmas verse. We skip it in the Advent readings—no one wants to think of death a…
Hope Does Not Disappoint
Hope is a gift given specifically for difficult times. Times like these. My question is how might we create a space where a common appreciation of everyone’s dignity thrives? I pray that isn’t a cumbersome question but let me repeat it once more: how might we, you and I, create a space where a common appreciat…
Christ in the Rubble
Imagine receiving a message from descendants of the 1st century church on #chrismaseve The Church before Constantine… The Church before the Vatican… The Church before Luther… The Church before Calvin… THAT is what THIS is. Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is the pastor of Christmas Evangelic…
2024 Subscribers’ Calls
Every quarter, Lisa sits down with our subscribers and patrons and chats about different things going on in the world.
If you are a paid subscriber to Substack or a Patreon patron at the James Farmer level or above, you are invited to participate in a quarterly call with Lisa Sharon Harper.
Stay tuned for call dates to be announced soon, and if you aren’t a subscriber or Patron, upgrade your subscription today, or join our Patreon!
Fly
Download Fly now on Apple or Amazon Music or stream on Spotify and take it with you wherever you go!
There is a Truth That Can Heal Us...
Less than a month ago, we released the video of the new anthem, “Fly (aka Fortune’s Song)” to the world, announcing that “there is a truth that can heal us if we let it.” We have been overwhelmed and astounded by the response to the song! The video has been shown in communities around the world to inspire people to lean into the call of truth-telling a…
Truth-Telling is the Work of Right Now
As we find ourselves in a pivotal moment in the history of both our nation and the church, truth-telling is the call of the moment. For a limited time (now - April 2024) Lisa is offering discounted speaking rates for truth-tellers like you!
Talk Title: “Truth-Telling is the Work of Right Now”
In a world that hungers for honesty and clarity, Lisa's talk delves into the pressing need for all of us to seek, listen to and tell the truth about who we are as a nation and as the church. With intimacy, humor and power Lisa models her truth-telling process by sharing her own quest to untangle her family’s 300 year story on American soil. She addresses the urgency of this moment, emphasizing how authentic storytelling can catalyze positive change. Lisa's powerful and engaging delivery leaves a lasting impact on her audiences, inspiring paradigm shifts that catalyze change.
For more information about Lisa Sharon Harper and her impactful message, please visit her website.
If you are interested in booking Lisa for your event, please fill out the Speaking Engagement Form to get started.
Lisa's schedule is filling up quickly, so we encourage you to act soon to secure her presence at your event. This is an opportunity to empower your audience with insights that are both enlightening and transformative.
On the Freedom Road Podcast this Month
Rabbi Sharon Brous
This episode we are joined by Rabbi Sharon Brous. In 2013 Rabbi Brous was listed as America’s #1 most influential Rabbi. Her 2016 TED Talk “It’s Time to Reclaim Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times and is utterly inspiring. At 30 years old, Rabbi Brous founded IKAR back in 2004. IKAR is a spiritual community in Los Angeles that has become a magne…
Advent in Palestine-Today
On this episode we are joined by Dr. Mitri Raheb, Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author and editor of 50 books including: Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible
Behind-the Front Lines w/ Dr. Mitri Raheb
On this episode we are joined by Dr. Mitri Raheb, Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author and editor of 50 books including: Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible; In the Eye of the Storm: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire and Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes—among many, many others.
Global Writer’s Group
Since April of 2020 as the world closed down, the Global Writer’s Group has been meeting via zoom every Saturday, with time off only for Christmas and New Years. Early in our time together, Lisa Sharon Harper charged the group with the task of “writing a new world into existence” and over time we have truly seen this in action. We have taken on the task of changing the world, and of course what changed first was ourselves. We as a group have become better writers over this time, but also better people, finding true community in the sacred sharing of ourselves with each other and the world.
We accept members on a rolling basis: it’s never too late to join the community. Prepare to find your life changed for the better as you sharpen your writing skills and prepare to bring your words to the world.
Collectively, we have published six books, have several writers who’ve recently become agented and/or are under contract for upcoming books, and many, many journal articles over the past three years with several more books in the works.
The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.
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