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Commentary: A message of hope in the face of hopelessness (Berkshire Eagle, April 2025)

By the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council

The celebrations of both Passover and Easter overlap this weekend. As leaders of faith communities throughout the South-ern Berkshires, we wanted to give voice to the message of hope in the face of hopelessness that these celebrations proclaim.

Passover and Easter celebrate God’s dramatic reversal of situations that the people in those times experienced as being completely hopeless. The people of Israel could not imagine a way they might be set free from an oppressive ruler all too willing to wield the greatest military force of that era to keep them enslaved.

The disciples of Jesus could not imagine a way that they might go forward after the oppressive government, which commanded the largest military force of their time, had brutally murdered their leader.

As we, the clergy of the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council, look out at our world, we too struggle with hopelessness in the face of the actions of oppressive governments. We recoil as political leaders appropriate our sacred religious imagery, language, and displays to grow their own power — creating an us-against-them fervor targetingthose who are in the minority, live at the margins and already live as oppressed peoples. The compassion, empathy, care and love of neighbor to which we are called is being demonized. Struggling against this relentless march of hatred and cruelty has left even the most faithful drained. When people are suffering in our neighborhood or around the world, when people are living scared, we are all impacted. It can make all of us feel less safe, secure and hopeful.

It is more important than ever for us to gather in community in these days that are holy across lines of belief and tell one another once again the stories of our faith. It is vital that we remember and lift up stories of release from captivity, life being stronger than death and light shining even in the ultimate darkness. These stories that give meaning to the past also serve as sources from which we glean hope for the future.

The Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council includes the Rev. Carol Allman-Morton, Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire, Housatonic; the Rev. Tadd Allman-Morton, First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, UCC; the Rev. Brent Damrow, The First Congregational Church, UCC, Stockbridge; the Rev. Liz Goodman, Monterey Church, UCC; Rabbi Jodie Gordon, Hevreh of Southern Berkshire; the Rev Jill Graham, First Congregational Church of Sheffield, UCC; the Rev. Erik Karas, Christ Trinity Church, Sheffield, Episcopal and Lutheran; the Rev. Marisa Brown Ludwig, First Congregational Church of Lee, UCC; and the Rev. Samuel T. Vaught, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Stockbridge.

“It is vital that we remember and lift up stories of release from captivity, life being stronger than death and light shining even in the ultimate darkness,” writes the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council.

STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE

Commentary: Whatever your faith, we welcome the light together (Berkshire Eagle, December 2024)

By the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council

We write to share with our community the power of light as it is celebrated in many of our faith communities while we enter the final days of December.

This year, the winter holiday season comes together in a way that doesn’t happen every year. For the first time since 2005, the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas coincide. The Jewish eight-day Festival of Lights and the Christian 12-day season of Christmas both begin on Wednesday, and both will stretch into the New Year. Meanwhile, many also celebrate Kwanzaa or honor the Winter Solstice, in each of which light is also central. Here in the northern hemisphere, days have just begun to lengthen after a season of increasing darkness, a phenomenon we might really feel. As clergy serving congregations across Southern Berkshire, we are grateful for the opportunity to elevate light and hope amidst the darkness of these pre-solstice days.

We members of the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council have taken this coincidence as a blessing and an opportunity to share our top 12 reasons to celebrate the light in all its literal and symbolic power, in all earnestness and playfulness. We invite you to let these shed light for you, too.

1. Light comforts the afraid, like many children we might know or might have been afraid of the dark and soothed by light. We hope you will be blessed with childlike wonder at the beauty of the lights that characterize this holiday season.

2. The distant light of unimaginably faraway stars reminds us of the splendor, power and mystery of the cosmos and silently encourages us to turn our earthly lights down. We hope you will be blessed with a sense of awe at the universe.

3. Light makes knowledge and wisdom by making reading and study possible even late into the night or in the early morning. We hope that your minds and hearts will be filled with the warmth of learning and the light of new ideas.

4. It can come as a welcome correction when someone tells us to lighten up. We hope that your interactions with friends and family are light with happiness and good humor.

5. One of the central themes of Hanukkah is rededication; the lights that we kindle are symbolic of the Eternal Light, which helps us to designate sacred spaces. We hope you will be blessed to be in places and spaces that feel holy to you over this holiday season ahead.

6. Hanukkah reminds us that miracles are possible, even when we don’t think we have enough to keep going. We hope that you will be blessed with renewed hope for the possibility of transformation.

7. Christmas calls us to celebrate that the Holy breaks into our lives as light born anew into darkness — in fragile, broken, invisible places — reminding us that love can always find a way. May you know the presence of a love that shines as a light in the darkness, a light that can never be put out.

8. Light helps us to see others and allows us to be seen. Whether your gatherings glow with the lights of a Christmas tree, a Hanukkah menorah or a Kinara, we hope that it will illuminate the faces of those you love, and allow them to see you in your fullness as well.

9. In kindling candles, we connect ourselves with people from all times, past, present and future, rooting ourselves deeply in human traditions. We hope your remembrance of things past brings healing and gratitude and your look to the future comes with hope about what good is possible.

10. During all of the Seasons of Light in the Northern Hemisphere we will actually begin to perceive the return of the light to the world as the Earth keeps rolling through space — look for it, embrace it, celebrate it.

11. In the light of fire that enables the cooking of special meals and sharing of food with friends, family, and those in need, we bless these special meals to shine light into our hearts. May the hands of those who prepare them see light in the faces they feed and those who partake recognize all the labor that has produced such bounty.

12. In the beauty of candlelight which is never diminished as it spreads its flame to other candles no matter how many are lit from that one candle, we see it physically displayed that we all have something essential to contribute to the project of thriving in joy.

We wish you, our Berkshire County neighbors and friends and all of your loved ones, the blessings of light as we cross the threshold into 2025.

The Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council includes the Rev. Marisa Brown Ludwig, First Congregational Church of Lee; the Rev. Carol Allman-Morton, Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire Housatonic; Rabbi Jodie Gordon, Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, Great Barrington; the Rev. Liz Goodman, Monterey UCC; the Rev. Tadd Allman-Morton, First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, UCC; the Rev. Erik Karas, Christ Trinity Church Episcopal and ELCA Lutheran, Sheffield; and the Rev. Jill Graham, First Congregational Church of Sheffield, UCC.

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/the-southern-berkshire-interfaith-clergy-council-whatever-your-faith-we-welcome-the-light-together/article_7cd4b91e-c165-11ef-bec4-53b835b0017c.html