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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York

Good morning.

As the guest speaker at a synod in Canada, which included the vast northern diocese of the Arctic, I met many first nations people, who have suffered horrifying persecution, often supported, even perpetrated by the Church. One evening they invited us to join their worship but it wasn’t what I was used to. They sang slowly, really slowly.

Familiar Anglican hymns took on whole new meanings and values and became a plaintive, heartfelt cry to God, an embodiment of those words from the first letter of Peter, ‘Cast your cares on him.’

Now, the devil hates music. In fact, the devil hates anything that's beautiful or heartfelt. Ugliness and cynicism are his currency, but that evening, I experienced something astonishingly beautiful and deeply felt. And like the prophet Habakkuk dancing on the hills even though there was desolation everywhere, and just as African American spirituals rejoiced in the final victory even though the oppressive conditions they lived in spoke only of defeat, so this slow singing bore witness to the astonishing power of the Christian faith to sustain people through oppression, find resources of hopefulness, and challenge injustice.

And so we pray –

Holy God, help us to speak about and confront the racism that still exists in our churches and in our world. Teach us to slow down, even to sing and pray more slowly, so that we can really take hold of the amazing grace that, in Christ and through Christ, can set us free.

Amen.