6 This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. 7 What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Isaiah 58:6-7 MSG

Sickness has plagued us from the beginning of time. It’s the reason why healing is such a key component of our sacred text.

Whether we help in a food pantry, open our doors to a person looking for shelter, or give a dollar to a person in need, we reflect on Luke 10 as a call for spiritual renewal.

There is an old saying that it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Let’s light some candles today.

“This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.” Romans 6:19a New Living Translation (NLT).

This Advent season Sisters and Brothers let us remember that anticipatory Joy. Let us remember that there is a Joy so powerful that it can make us fall to our knees.

Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

We must breathe to keep our hearts beating and blood flowing. But, so many of life’s challenges threaten to or actually do suffocate us.

Community Renewal Society is essential to the eradication of systemic racism in the United States because we must breathe.

Just as God gave us the breath of life, we must express our gratitude by giving to the work that minister to the needs of others.

We are those whom God breathed on; who breathe because of God; and whose breath is continually being choked off. We are those who are suffocated by marginalization, degradation, dehumanized and demoralized due to the color of our skin.

It is said that peace is not the absence of conflict or strife, but the ability to cultivate calm in the midst of chaos. As a leader in the American civil rights movement, Thurman surely felt the chaos of his time, as we so acutely feel ours now.

We Must Breathe affirms the sanctity of life. There is no place for poverty and racism in our society. Together, with a collective breath, we can transform society toward greater justice, greater good, and greater love. Together, as a Beloved Community, we must breathe.

Freedom fighter, Union spy, Underground Railroad Conductor and Social Justice Organizer, Harriet Tubman is commanding our attention even 100 years after her death.

After the end of a difficult legislative session in Springfield, CRS Executive Director, Rev. Curtiss Paul DeYoung, shared the following encouragement with CRS leaders at the summer Leadership Council on June 21, 2014.