Let It Shine | February 8, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
- The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
I lift my hands in total praise to you…. This was a song that was introduced to me by Dorsey Blake. It now brings back his memory. It is a powerful testament to our human dependence, but also to our strength. I began with this song today because I think we need it.
I just spent a week listening to the pain of the world as experienced by individuals that meet with me weekly for support. It is a pain that certainly resonates with me as well. It is a pain that demands an embrace…an embrace of our situation…of our plight…of our dependence on life and on each other. I have been reading a book entitled, The Return of the Light. It is a collection of tales of the return of the light from around the world. I have reached for these tales at this seemingly dark time in order to illuminate our path…just as the sun illumines our path each day. The first story I chose was entitled, The Pull-Together Morning from the tribal peoples of Tanzania. Interestingly, I knew something about the formation of the country of Tanzania in the 1960s. My brother was profoundly interested in history…all history and at the time was enthralled by the story of the formation of the country of Tanzania (from Tanganika and Zanzibar). The story is about the coming of the light…the sun…the symbol of our creator…
In the beginning of the world, there was no sun in the sky. Everyone was falling into holes, bumping into one another, and picking a lot of fights…
Listen, people! Said Crocodile. “Umoja (Unity). If we are going to solve our problems, we’ve got to admit that despite our differences, we’re all in this together. Antelope said, “we’ve got to pull together.”
The story is much like other traditional stories. It is about how the animals pulled together to find light. The animals went to the Sky God to ask for light. The Sky God, trying to trick them, asked for seemingly impossible things. When the animals pulled together, they were able to provide what the god asked, but the god tried to trick them. Finally, they were able to steal a box from the sky that they believed held the light. But when they opened it, it contained a rooster! At first the animals thought they had been fooled. But then they heard the sound of the rooster and saw the rising of the sun. That is how light came into the world…through a pulling together of all earth’s inhabitants.
There’s a better day a comin’. We want to believe this! We want to believe that we will be able to overcome our current situation. And we know that we have been here before. We have been in a place of lightening flashing…thunder crashing…stars falling. In thinking back to the time of the civil rights movement, we may be able to learn something.
One leader of that movement was Ella Baker. Often seen as someone who enabled others to be leaders, she believed that strong leaders were not absolutely necessary if the people were strong. Instead, she said…Strong people don’t need strong leaders. This can give us hope for our present situation. She also said:
Give light, and people will find the way.
It is this light that we are in need of today. And it is not easy to find it. Many of us are living in darkness…in hiding from the pressure …the burden of our present reality. Where is the light in our current struggle? Well, I think the answer is not far to seek…it continues to be in the people. It continues to be in the people who are committed to the vision of the Beloved Community. bell hooks wrote of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of this Beloved Community as flawed. She said that the idea of race could not be transcended or forgotten, but had to be learned and experienced. She said that she had experienced a sense of this beloved community growing up and knew that it was possible. It is the light that Baker spoke of that is needed to illuminate this possibility…a light that we have experienced here at Fellowship Church. In reflecting on our history, I have revisited the book, Footprints of a Dream. In the introduction of the book Thurman wrote:
The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of people often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making.
Thurman wrote that this was what was happening at the time to Alfred Fisk and a group of people around him that formed the Dream that became this church. Of the experiment of Fellowship Church Thurman wrote, the way of the pioneer is a lonely journey. This is sometimes apparent in this Beloved Community. We are at a point in the life of the church where fewer and fewer can relate to us. Thurman responded to this reality by saying you do not need anyone else to feel fulfilled. What Thurman meant by this, I think, is that we must seek and find what is needful for our spirit. We need others to do the work, yes, but in the end, we have been given all that is needed in life…we are companioned by the Great Spirit of Life…the all-pervading presence of the holy. He experienced this often in the words of the 139th psalm:
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.2
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.3
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.4
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.5
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.6
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?8
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.9
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,10
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.11
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”12
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
It is this light that the group of seekers at Fellowship Church followed. They were able to make available experiences by which the sense of separateness will be transcended and unity expressed…the unity spoken of on that Pull-Together Morning…the unity of the spirit that Thurman often spoke of as the coming together of the particular and the universal.
This is what we must face at this pivotal period in history. We must face the reality that we must pull ourselves together…in a beloved community committed to the working out of God’s purpose, here and in all places.
I’d like to end with the words of an important teacher of mine, Bernice Johnson Reagon. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Reagon explains:
Sound is a way…of announcing that we are here…that this is real. Light is necessary for this sound to resonate…the light of each of our lives. May we pull together, admitting we are all in this together in this beloved community.
Comments