When white supremacist "Zoom-bombers" tried to stop us from worshipping, church member and Council co-chair Leslie Hamilton forged a powerful poem-prayer in response.

An interruption

You can’t take us out with your chat your hate speech

Your white supremacy

Your ill-conceived disruption plan

Your unsuccessful plot to rob us of unity and focus and comfort and certainty

Your …

HACKING BY WHITE SUPREMACY

Hate Speech cutting into chat like scissors, scraping to etch pain like acid

Acting out anger at solidarity

Coming in our midst uninvited

KKK images of a rally of hate

Idolatry of those encouraging standing back and standing by

Not owning the N word spreading in a text virus

Going deep even as we begin to carve out this poisoned arrow seeking to imbed itself in the flesh of our Sanctuary

Bigotry in all its forms

Yelling ineffectual words with a stunning lack of originality

White supremacist ranting

Having an unintended effect of

Igniting a fire of resolve

Taking back our space that was stolen

Embracing each other in this moment of violation

Settled in this space of virtual sanctuary

Understanding racism blooms outside our walls like algae on a cesspool

Peaceful in the knowledge of all we do inside our walls

Reaching into our souls and out to each other

Exciting a spirit of vigilance

Maintaining a focus on black lives that matter, a certainty

that black is beautiful,

that ebony is ebullient,

that sepia is significant,

that melanin is marvelous //

in the way that our church signboard out front and on our website raucously declares

///

Angling our souls to face into each other

Capturing the essence of who we are as a congregation

Youth, elder, everyone alike bridging the gap to each other and edging the other out