Looking Back and Moving Forward

Monday, November 3, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! I spent a few hours on Saturday reading some of the past Monday Moments as I continue working on a project of turning over 200 reflections into a book. As I read through pieces I wrote several years ago, I recognize which ideas have changed and even how my writing style has grown and developed. There are clear contenders for inclusion in the book and others which aren’t bad, but perhaps not up to the level of republishing (this one is probably going to be in the latter category).

I enjoy the process of looking through old materials and items. Memories can help us trace where we’ve been and help us provide context for where we’re going. Every day we seem to learn something new which makes us worry and wonder how we can respond. Sometimes the only thing to do and the only way we can respond is to keep moving forward.

How do you move forward when the world seems so hostile? What helps you see and create the path forward?

Let us pray: Gracious God, sometimes we have to look back so that we can create the context for moving forward. Help us continue walking the paths you have laid out for us which might not always be easy, but which always beckon us on to whatever comes next. We ask this through our savior and liberator, Jesus, who experienced the struggle and joy of moving forward. Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben +

Just Love

Sunday, November 2, 2025 - All Souls Day

The Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines (he/him)

Co-Executive Director, ProgressiveChristianity.org 

Allied Christian

“See what love Abba God has lavished on us in letting us be called God’s children! Yet that in fact is what we are. The reason the world does not recognize us is that it never recognized God.”

(1 John 3:1, The Inclusive Bible)

“When you start understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.” The Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes, Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology

You are a child of God. You have inherent worth and dignity. You are a reflection of God’s divine image. I don’t even know you, yet I am confident that these statements are profoundly true. God loves you, just as you are. The loudest Christian voices scream that none of us is worthy. Don’t listen. Bad theology says that humans are fundamentally sinful and in need of redemption.

Good theology reminds us that God created us and claimed us as good. Great theology recognizes that we are exactly who God created us to be and embraces God’s love for us. Why is that so hard to accept?

The author of 1 John keeps it simple by reminding us that we are all God’s children. When people don’t recognize the sacred worth of others, they are missing the whole point of the Gospel. That’s why in 1 John we’re reminded that if we can’t love our neighbor whom we can see, there’s no way we can love our God whom we can’t see. If we believe that we are all reflections of God—and I do—then we need all of us in our diversity to gain a fuller picture ofwho God is and how God works.

Today is All Souls Day and the perfect time to recognize that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. It is especially important to remember departed loved ones who had religion weaponized against them and were forced to hide their authentic selves. It is time to recognize God’s love for all of us, no matter who we are or what our journey has been so that we can create a more just world. May it be so. Amen.

Reflection

When have you felt judged because of religion? When have you felt empowered by faith?

Action

Take a few moments and journal your responses to the questions above. In the quote for today’s devotional, Dr. Townes encourages us to love others and pursue justice. Write about how you can use your faith to transform the world.

We are the Answer to our Ancestors’ Prayers

Saturday, November 1, 2025 - All Saints Day

The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter (he/him)

Associate Professor of Theology, Ecology, and Race, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Lead Pastor, The Loft Faith Community (Westwood, CA)

Allied Christian

I’m grateful to God, whom I serve with a good conscience as my ancestors did. I constantly remember you in my prayers day and night. When I remember your tears, I long to see you so that I can be filled with happiness. I’m reminded of your authentic faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I’m sure that this faith is also inside you. Because of this, I’m reminding you to revive God’s gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands. God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self controlled.

(2 Timothy 1:3-7 CEV)

All ten of us gathered in the hospital to be with my grandmother, Yvonne Martin. She had a seizure early that morning, and my grandfather rushed her to the hospital. I was standing among my siblings, my mother, aunt, uncles, and grandfather as we surrounded her hospital bed. She was smiling and laughing, and everything seemed ok. Yvonne had suffered a stroke when she was forty-four years old and had only regained

partial ability to speak. Still, she communicated in nods, facial expressions, and various sounds that we learned to interpret. When it was time for us to leave the room so she could rest, she made a sound, uttered the word “pray” – and pointed to me.

In hindsight, I understand this prayer as a moment of transition and transformation. It was the last prayer my grandmother heard me pray because she was beginning her transition from this life to the next. She was also affirming the spiritual transformation she saw taking place within me, affirming my call to ministry and as a spiritual leader within our family.

My grandmother was born in 1942 in Hammond, Louisiana. Her parents were sharecroppers, and her grandparents had been enslaved on a plantation near her birthplace. She and my grandfather were solidly middle class, a far cry from their impoverished upbringing. Their lives were full of struggle and strife, joy and celebration. My grandmother was grateful because she knew she was standing on the prayers of her enslaved ancestors.

All Saints Day is an opportunity to remember our ancestors, or as the old folk say in my tradition, to “remember who we are, and whose we are.” This expression carries a double meaning. It is an invitation to remember that we are beloved children of the Divine and that despite the dehumanizing narratives that exist within a racist, sexist, ableist, and queerphobic society, we are worthy of love. The expression is also an invitation to remember the stories of our ancestors, not just to laud them for their courage and resilience. Instead, we

remember their stories so that we know how to place ourselves in the collective story of liberation, freedom, and self-determination. When they transition from this world to the next, their story is woven into the tapestry of our familial and cultural narratives. With bated breath, the thread of their story waits and listens as our life story unfolds. We are the answer to our ancestors’ prayer. We are the future ancestors who must continue to pray.

Reflection

We all carry deep stories within us. Deep stories are stories that are told over and over, reframed, and recast to uphold an interpretation of history that helps us understand who we are and who we are becoming. What are one or two deep stories from your family? How are those stories influencing you today?