Celebrating Success, Deepening Faith

One phrase stood out for me at POWER’s celebration of the passage of Issue 1. Bishop Royster, reflecting on what we had accomplished, said “Every phone number dialed, every door knocked was a prayer for the well-being of the city.” That helped me make faith-sense of the work we have done. It felt like one wrong number after another, but it resulted in making a real change in the city.

Councilman Goode spoke at the celebration about the campaign as an expression of his faith life. His family had been sharecroppers, he told us, and since that beginning he has wanted to lift all people out of grinding poverty. In 2000, he was (and still is) the youngest council-at-large representative on city council. He has worked toward raising the minimum wage from his first months in office. The arrest of a cousin on a drug charge deepened his resolve to improve living conditions. He told us when police informed him in 2005 they were arresting his cousin, he shut himself away for two weeks until he had framed a resolution about raising the minimum wage for city workers. He returned to council and introduced the bill without consulting any other council members. When the resolution passed unanimously he interpreted it as a sign he was doing God’s will. He first aligned with Acorn to support the effort, but they fell away. He has not felt so sustained and strengthened until POWER backed his work. It has been a faith journey for him, he said, as though he were just realizing it.

POWER has become a significant part of my faith journey also. Discovering and building relationships with people from many denominations and faiths has deepened and inspired my experience of worship. I have learned to address God, at least in spoken prayer, as Holy One or Creator God. God is One and is known to all participants in POWER. Also POWER worship tends to be joyous and responsive more than formal and reserved. Plus it is strongly incarnational. We did an exercise to discover our own strength by being invited by Bishop Royster – who is a very substantial man – to join together to physically move him from his chosen position. It took probably 15 of us to move him, showing the difficulty but also the possibility to make change. Coming to know people across so many boundaries enriches my life and my faith. POWER’s mode of operation is to help all its participants strengthen their leadership abilities. POWER staff and colleagues support and encourage us to take the next step, dare the next challenge. We learn community organizing as relationship building. Jarrett points out that God, by God’s own triune nature, is relational. We are imitators of God in POWER, although I’ve never heard anyone express it that way.

I hope all who joined in the campaign to pass Issue 1 had something of this experience. The next step is to achieve a full, fair funding formula for all public schools in the state. We will be partnering with other organizations, researching what other states have done, learning about how schools function now and how they can improve. I invite anyone interested in children and education to join us after SUPPER at St. Martin's on June 25 to talk about your POWER experience in the Voter Engagement Project and to hear what is happening next.

- The Rev. Carol Duncan

Read about the May 20, 2014 Ballot Question #1

Learn more about POWER's Education Funding plan

Learning to Clap

Voices of POWER featured 10 choirs from POWER
congregations, ranging from gospel music to jazz to
recitation from the Quran.

I delight in church music! I am lifted up by singing the words, by hearing the choir and the organ playing. You may not notice – I rather hope you don’t – that my head is nodding to the beat of just about any hymn. If not my head, then my foot. Sometimes I try to stop because I’m worried it looks goofy to have my head nodding like a metronome. But it doesn’t work. Something inside me just responds that way to music. Often I think it’s a way of praying. Even when I am standing waiting in the gospel procession listening to you all sing my toes are keeping time inside my shoes. I can’t help it. It’s my spirit uplifted in praise.

So, here’s the thing. I can’t clap in time to gospel music. Maybe because I’m left-handed, but probably not. No, it’s probably because I never had the chance to learn this different kind of rhythm from most of the hymns I know. But I love gospel music. So here is a great thing that happened for me:

On January 26th, over 400 Philadelphians from diverse faiths and backgrounds attended POWER’s first annual musical fundraiser, Voices of POWER. The event celebrated POWER’s work thus far for its three campaigns: expanding living wages for workers, increasing equity in public school funding, and promoting more humane immigration policies.

I heard ten choirs pouring out their hearts for love of the Lord. The beat was irresistible. Everyone around me was clapping on the off beat. My hands wouldn’t do it. I could nod my head and sway my body to join the music, but not my hands. I felt stymied, short-circuited. I tried watching my neighbor very closely to clap when she did. But she was an inveterate praise singer. She leaped to her feet because she just could not sit still. I would have like to follow her, but I probably would have tripped over my feet. It was the kind of music that made one want to rise up.

So then I tried following the person sitting in front of me. That worked better. By about the fourth choir I was getting it at least half the time. I would go along, but then stumble and lose it. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle, a new kind of balance.

Then about the sixth number, I could sort of let go of copying. My hands were starting to know when to clap. On the seventh song I got it. I didn’t need to think about it or watch anyone else. It was thrilling to me. I slipped into being part of the whole. Something broke loose in me and I could swim in the music. It was a revelation of unity. I hope it really is like riding a bike, and I can keep this new kind of balance.

I urge everyone to come to next year’s Voices of POWER. It is a great experience.

Oh, and I also got one of the 30 awards they gave out. It was the “Show Me the Money Award” because I was the first to commit to a monthly contribution. POWER is doing great work. I hope many St. Martin’s parishioners will join me in supporting fair wages, good schools and welcoming immigrants.

- The Rev. Carol Dunan (far left in photo to the right)


CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THE CONCERT