Come On! Let’s go to the protest! | October 26, 2025 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton

But there is another and vaster possibility which has made itself manifest here and there during this fateful time: a deep spiritual awareness that one’s life is in vital touch with the Source of Being that holds and makes secure against all that destroys and lays waste.

The opening words are from Dr. Howard Thurman in his book, The Luminous Darkness. He is discussing what was happening during the Civil Rights Movement when people joined with others for protests and demonstrations. I was led to these words after I experienced a visitation in a dream from Dr. Dorsey Blake. I had been asking for his guidance and it seems like I got it…in his comment in my dream: Come on! Let’s go to the protest! Dr. Blake was clearly an activist, speaking at many demonstrations in support of empowerment of people, particularly those with their backs against the wall. I am reminded of his presence with the Religious Witness with Homeless People, the Interfaith Movement for Prison Reform and the abolition of the death penalty, among many other groups. He spoke to gathering both small and large, calling out for a world rooted in love, dignity and liberation. He surely called upon a voice deep within…the voice that Thurman alludes to when discussing the civil rights movement…a deep spiritual awareness that one’s life is in vital touch with the Source of Being and makes secure against all that destroys and lays waste.

So, what did Dr. Blake mean when he said Let’s go to the protest!? Did he mean that everyone must attend the protest? Maybe, yet I know that he was not one to decide for others what they should do. He had a deep respect for the individual that showed through in his dealings with each person as a manifestation of the all-pervading presence…the source of life. Still, I have the feeling that he was pointing out the urgency of our current situation. I have been highlighting the fear that many of us are experiencing and I want us to be able to acknowledge that. And we also need to sense the urgency…the urgency of NOW! What did King call it? The fierce urgency of now…he wrote:

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ‘is’ such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

Now I am not sure King or Thurman for that matter could have envisioned what is happening now…most of all the speed with which it is happening. But one thing is for sure, they both would not be on the sidelines resting. They would be advocating for us to engage in vigorous and positive action. Thurman, who lamented the fact that the church was not effective in this regard in his book, The Luminous Darkness wrote:

…my insistence is that the church has lost the initiative to inspire such behavior in our society. The image of the church is so damaged that at the moment it does not provide an effective rallying point.

Is it possible for Fellowship Church to provide a rallying point at this point in history where we are witnessing all that destroys and lays waste, in so many areas of our common lives…our most sacredly held values, both human and more than human? Can we redeem parts of the damaged church…the ineffectual organization that stands by and is silent? Heed the words of Petrarch in his Letters of Old Age:

When a word must be spoken to further a good cause, and those whom it behooves to speak remain silent, anybody ought to raise their voice, and break a silence which may be fraught with evil…Many a time a few simple words have helped further the welfare of the nation, no matter who uttered them; the voice itself displaying its latent powers, sufficed to move the hearts of people.

Here is such a word spoken (and sung) by Joan Baez at the recent No Kings rally in San Francisco. She is singing a song entitled, Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life!):

Clearly those of us, like Joan Baez who value life, recognize what is happening right now…and it goes far beyond our human values to the well-being of our Earth home. Thurman was deeply rooted in nature and believed that this was at the heart of our actions toward our home and our fellows. He wrote:

[A person] cannot long separate [themself] from nature without withering as a cut rose in a vase. One of the deceptive aspects of mind is to give [a person] the illusion of being distinct from and over against but not a part of nature. It is but a single leap thus to regard nature as being so completely other than [oneself] that they may exploit it, plunder it, and rape it with impunity.

Thurman understood the broad scope of the movement and, already when he wrote these words, he understood the fierce, urgency of now, for our earth and its creatures…the human and the more-than-human. He understood the interconnectedness of life. He also understood King’s philosophy of non-violent direct action as what was being called for. At King’s memorial service Thurman stressed this philosophy and stated:

He was killed in one sense because humankind is not quite human yet.

May he live because all of us in America are closer to becoming human

than we ever were before.

Is that what is needed? Do we need to become more human? What did he mean by this? I think what Thurman meant was, that we must recognize our humanness…our dependence on a spirit that makes for wholeness and for community. At the end of the book, The Luminous Darkness, he wrote:

There is a spirit abroad in life…it is a spirit that makes for wholeness and for community; it finds its way into the quiet solitude of a Supreme Court justice [there are a couple left] when they ponder the constitutionality of an act of Congress which guarantees civil rights to all its citizens; it settles in the pools of light in the face of a little girl as with her frailty she challenges the hard frightened heart of a police chief [or a soldier on the streets of Gaza]; it walks along the lonely road with the solitary protest marcher and settles over them with a benediction as they fall by the assassin’s bullet…; it kindles the fires of unity in the heart of Jewish Rabbi, Catholic Priest, and protestant Minister [and Muslim Imam, and Hindu Priest, and Buddhist Monk and Wiccan Priestess] as they join arms together, giving witness to their God [Great Spirit, etc.] on behalf of a kinship that transcends all barriers; it broods over the demonstrators for justice and brings comfort to the desolate and forgotten…; it knows no country and its allies are to be found wherever the heart is kind and the collective will and the private endeavor seek to make justice where injustice abounds, to make peace where chaos is rampant, and to make the voice heard on behalf of the helpless and the weak.

It is the voice of God and the voice of the human being; it is the meaning of all the strivings of all of humanity toward [wholeness].

I think this is what Dr. Dorsey Blake meant when he encouraged us to Come on!...when he asked us to accompany him to the protest…to letting our voice be heard on behalf of Fellowship Church…on behalf of All Peoples seeking justice, wholeness and peace. He was, I think, pointing to the existence of a vaster possibility… a deep spiritual awareness that reminds us that we are in vital touch with the Source of Being…the Source of Being that holds and makes secure against all that destroys and lays waste. This awareness includes the awareness that we are facing a fateful time in which we are being called to respond. We are being encouraged by Thurman, and indeed by Dr. Blake to center down and look to our inner authority that has the power to transcend the current threat of fascism and authoritarianism. May we find the strength to join Dr. Dorsey Blake and all of our ancestors and contemporaries in positive action to address the needs of now.