Dear Friends ~

I had thought to be silent in these pages for at least a week after my last post, but yesterday’s victory at Standing Rock—whatever comes next—calls for a song:

“My Victory is Your Victory” Words on tree trunk by Susan Windle, an image brought brought forward from the days of the 2016 presidential primary.

My Victory
(Meditation on Psalm 18, David’s Victory Song)

My victory is your victory, is our
victory, is the one tale
that wants to be told
over and over in thousand tongues until
there is no need to tell it anymore
because we are all living
the story that wants to be lived.

There is a man of wavering ways
and violent urge,
of narrow will and stature large:
human, with a killing grip. We fight,
male and female, to be free,
delivered from his clutch.

Every triumph against him must be told,
each battle heralded, celebrated,
every wondrous birthing
seen and heard, counted, recounted.
Our power is magnified by our songs.
We make a pathway
to freedom with our stories,
a highway for salvation with our sounds:
our rising voices, our God’s
determined roar—let it come
through us, let it come.
Selah.

–Susan Windle

All praises to the Indigenous Ones who have led and will continue leading us through these narrow passages.

Blessings,

Susan