Stilled

June 21, 2024 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Calming, Faith journey

Scripture Text: Mark 4: 35-41 (Proper 7B)

³⁵On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. ³⁷A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. ³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. ⁴⁰He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

So before we dive in, (that was a pun) I want to invite you to a little imagery. What in your life needs to be calmed? What is the thing that you feel like you just can’t control, just can’t get a handle on which way to go? What is the storm that scares you and turns you and sometimes feels like it has knocked you off your feet? We all have it, that thing that we’d just like someone to “fix”. And I want you to imagine that storm.

This Gospel passage is one of the most familiar and oft-quoted stories in the Gospels. Many of us can recall listening to this story as it was read to us from one of those children’s storybook bibles or seeing it depicted in paintings and pictures. We like this story. It tends to sometimes gives us a sense of composure about our lives, knowing that Christ can calm the storms, purge our fears, and make our lives into the way that we like them once again.

Here, Jesus stands on the edge of the boat with his arms outstretched over the whitecaps of a raging lake (it’s a like, rather than a sea). With that image in mind, the text may become for us a miracle story demonstrating the divine power of Jesus. This Jesus in whom we believe, this Jesus in whom we put our faith, can do anything—can pick up the pieces of our lives and put them back together, can calm the raging waters that frustrate our otherwise calm repose, and can turn our lives into what we cannot, calming the storms of disapproval, rejection, failure, meaningless, illness, and even death and providing us a veritable sanctuary to see all those things through.

But the problem is that if we stop there, if for us Jesus becomes the one who always “fixes” things, who calms the chaos and puts things back the way they were, then I think we have missed a large part of who Jesus is. Sometimes I think it’s good to be reminded that Jesus is not a superhero. The promise is NOT that he will put things back the way they were; the promise is that life is more, that there is more waiting for us beyond what we see, and that we will always, always, always have someone with us as we walk through these storms.

I remember when I was a young adult. I had moved to Denver with Apache Corporation and was facing my first winter beyond the (relatively) mild winters of South Texas. Now you have to understand that I was an only daughter as well as an only granddaughter. I was used to having things “fixed” for me. As I sat in my apartment on that coldest night that I had encountered so far in my new surroundings, the weatherman on the news, in an effort to insert some other facts of interest into an otherwise perilous situation, told us that oil in a car will congeal at 22 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). He then followed this fun fact with the prediction that the temperature that night would fall to 27 degrees below zero. I thought of my brand new car sitting outside of the apartment building and I panicked. I did the only thing I knew to do. As the independent and assured young woman that I was, I called my dad. When I told him the dilemma (after waking him at 11:30 his time), his response completely threw me: “Shelli, I know that you think I have the answers to all of life’s questions, but, think about it—I have lived in Katy, TX my entire life. Why would I know the answer to this question? I think it was at that moment that my dad moved from being my “fixer” to being my father. I think it’s safe to assume that the disciples had fallen into the same boat, so to speak. Jesus was always there, always pulled them out of the murky water, always saving them usually from themselves.

So, think about the passage again. It was evening. It was beginning to be dark as the light of day began to tip beneath the horizon. And it was now that Jesus had suggested that they make their way to the other side of the lake, away from the familiar crowds, toward the unknown, perhaps the unfriendly and unwelcoming, with their small little entourage of boats. Why would they do this? Think about it. They did not have access to the “Severe Weather Center” on their local news broadcast or that neat little weather app on your phone. They had no navigation equipment or GPS. They had no idea what they were getting into. The darkness was always a symbol for the wilderness, for danger. And the other side of the lake? Completely unknown. So, Jesus suggests that they venture into the wilds of the unknown, to leave the safety of the harbor behind.

And as they get out into the middle of the lake, a great windstorm arises, so great that the waves crash against the boats carrying Jesus and the disciples. Now you have to remember that this was not a huge boat. First century fishing boats were probably about 20 feet long and had no cover over them. You couldn’t go down under deck. The hull would have been maybe only four feet deep. So before long, water begins to fill up the small boat. Not even the experienced fishermen in the bunch could do anything about this. So they turn to Jesus. Jesus will save them. Jesus will fix this. “Jesus, save us!”

And there is Jesus, sound asleep on the boat cushion at the rear of the boat. You can imagine what the disciples thought. “Are you kidding me? Here we are, dying, and you are asleep! What are you thinking? Get up and save us! Get up now!” Now, odd as this may be to us, you can’t really blame Jesus. He had to be tired. He had been teaching in the hot sun and the crowds just wouldn’t leave him alone. So, he lay down and he rested. Everything would be alright. And then he is jolted awake by these overly-dramatic disciples who can’t seem to take care of themselves or each other. “Good grief,” he thought, “have you learned nothing from me?” So he got up and with a few simple words, “Peace! Be still!”, the storm subsided. And they floated for a few moments, not saying a word to each other, as the boat glided through the water as if on glass. Then Jesus turned to them. “Have you no faith? Have you learned nothing from me?”

So, as I mentioned before, we’re all familiar with this story. It’s reading has been sort of drilled into us from an early age. What if we’re reading it wrong? What if Jesus didn’t really calm the waves but rather calmed the disciples’ stress and anxiety about them? What if Jesus, with calming wisdom, simply guided the boat into a calm place, into a still cove that was sheltered from the winds and waves? What if Jesus with a peace-filled repose took the helm and steered the boat away from the waves and then in the quietness, looked at the disciples and said peacefully, “Shhh….calm…everything is going to be OK.” What if Jesus wisely gave the disciples room to breathe?

At the risk of destroying your perceptions about the story, the notion that Jesus somehow fixes our lives by taking the storms away doesn’t really jive with the rest of the scriptures. God doesn’t fix things; The Bible is not the story of a magician. God re-creates them. And sometimes it means just looking at something differently or perhaps from a different place. But all of us are often trying to escape the storm. So, we look for something that will get us out of it. But even when God steers us into the quiet, into the stillness, that doesn’t mean that it will always be that way or that we should stay there. That is not the final plan.

When I was little, we used to swim in rice wells (because, you know…Katy). It was fun and a little scary. You had to crawl up onto this huge pipe and walk out on it over the water. As the water gushed out of the pipe, it created these swirling typhoon-like waves of water. And you jumped off and were forced down into it by the waters barreling out. And then you swam a little and got out and did it again. But you know what? We never went into the still waters around the edge of the pond. You know why? It was dangerous. It was rancid. That’s where the snakes were. The safest place was the constantly-swirling water.

13^th century mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg said that “the day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw—and knew I saw—all things in God and God in all things.” You know, when we read this passage, we see God on the shore, amidst safety and predictability. And we see God in the calming of the storm. But we may miss the God in the darkness as our little boat sails away from the disappearing light. We may miss God in the storms themselves that we encounter that make us realize that God has given us enough faith to get us through. And we miss God in the unfamiliarity of the far shore, in the unknown lands toward which we sail. We also miss the way God guides us into a place where we can sort of regroup and ready ourselves for the rest of the journey. For us, fear is something we are supposed to overcome. And yet, Jesus didn’t rebuke the disciples because they were afraid; his frustration was that they didn’t have faith to know that God was there with them, with them no matter what life brings. That is why in the midst of all these storms and all this noise, in the midst of everything that goes on in our lives, we hear Jesus saying, “Peace! Be still…Come and follow me—not the noise, not the ones that tell you that life can be fixed. Untie your boats from the harbor and follow me.” And, in the meantime, God may steer you into a cove until you’re ready for the rest of the journey. God is not going to fix it; God is going to show you a new thing. All you have to do is follow, no matter what the journey holds, because we’re on our way to Life.

Suppose your whole world seems to rock on its foundation. Hold on steadily and let it rock, and when the rocking is over, the picture will have reassembled itself into something much nearer to your heart’s desire. (Emmett Fox)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Seeds

June 14, 2024 shelliwilliams Uncategorized

Scripture Text: Mark 4: 26-34 (Proper 6B)

²⁶He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”³⁰He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³²yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”³³With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

It seems that Jesus was big on botanical images, doesn’t it? But they work. You plant seeds, you feed and care for them, and they grow into a plant, right? But I think there’s something else. Plants don’t grow because we make them grow. Plants grow because that’s what plants do. We can’t hurry them. We can’t control them. We can’t predict when they will bloom. Oh, we can shape them and prune them and help them along but they’re pretty much going to do what they’re meant to do. Regardless of how much we plan and how much we do, we cannot make our plant grow. We are not called to plan when the harvest will happen or when it will end. They sprout, they grow, they produce fruit, and they die. They’re part of that cycle of life. They’re part of us. It doesn’t mean that we have nothing to do with it, though. We are the scatterers and the gatherers. We are the planters and the harvesters.

Next, Jesus once again uses that familiar little mustard seed. We’ve read that many times before. It’s tiny, really nothing more than a spec. Now often when we read of this beloved mustard seed, so many of us imagine this tiny seed that grows into this big beautiful tree. (I don’t know. Was there a Sunday School picture that depicted that?) You’ve heard that image. People like to use it to depict what even a tiny bit of faith can do. But I’m not so sure that’s what it was meant to say. Because, see, that tiny mustard seed does not, no matter how hard it tries, no matter what we do to help it, grow into a majestic redwood. It grows into a bush (or if it’s REALLY persistent, a sort of bushy, squatty tree), a very ordinary bush with an ordinary harvest that will end up in our spice rack or as a spread on our sandwich. There’s nothing really surprising about the outcome. It’s what is supposed to happen. It’s what God has promised.

So, interestingly enough, Jesus used something incredibly ordinary to illustrate his point. But even run-of-the-mill ordinary things can be extraordinary. A couple of months ago, I bought some egg rolls. But when I got ready to eat them, I realized I had no Chinese mustard. How can you eat egg rolls without Chinese mustard? (Well, I can’t) So, I thought, well how hard can that be to make? All it takes is a little dry mustard, a little rice vinegar, and some ice water. Easy, right? Well, yes, if you want to create something that will clean out your sinuses for the next decade! Just for the record, mustard, small though it might be, packs quite a dramatic punch!

So, what, really, is Jesus trying to teach us with this string of parables? It sort of sounds like the disciples were getting the teacher’s notes and the rest of us were just on our own. No, I think Jesus just wanted us to look at things differently. I think Jesus wanted us to have faith in the faith that God had in us. Faith is a gift. God supplants the seeds of faith into our lives—ALL of our lives. And they begin to grow. But, lest we think that faith can be charted into some perfectly-increasing line graph through our life, we need to remember that there is no prescribed pathway for our faith. “Measuring faith” is not up to us. God gives us whatever we need.

So, if someone tells you that “you don’t have enough faith” or that “you just need to have more faith”, have faith in the faith that God has in you. Each of us has been given the faith that we need to be who God calls us to be. Sometimes it will, indeed, feel like your faith could move mountains. And sometimes it just doesn’t seem to fit into who you are. Sometimes it seems empty and elusive. Sometimes it seems like you’ve lost it. (St. John of the Cross penned it as the “dark night of the soul” in his well-known 16^th century poem) Perhaps those times in your life are times when your faith lays in winter fallow, regenerating, re-seeding, preparing for the new growth to come. To be honest, if everyone was constantly moving mountains, the world’s topography would be totally confusing. Sometimes, it takes faith to get out of bed. On those days, that’s enough. Sometimes the silence of faith is more powerful than the loud, mountain-moving chorus.

The truth is, most of our life is lived between the times of planting and the times of harvest. Most of our life is spent waiting on fruit, waiting on completion, waiting on something that we might never see in this life (I think Moses could tell us a thing or two about that. Sometimes the promised land is not ours to enter). But those fallow times are never wasted. They, too, are part of the life cycle. In fact, it is those times of fallow, those times of waiting when our faith is what gets us through. Have faith in the faith that God has in you. The harvest is coming. Maybe you’ll see it; maybe you won’t. But your faith is part of what brings it into being—no matter how small you think the seed might be. So, whatever you do, however small it seems, just keep scattering seed and have faith in the faith that God has in you.

Faith isn’t an argument, a catechism, a philosophical proof. It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to see. As the Bible says: Taste and see. (Sara Miles)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Creation…again

June 12, 2024 shelliwilliams Uncategorized

Genesis 1

1In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.^{’ 3}Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.⁶And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.⁹And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.²⁰And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.²⁶Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”²⁷So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”²⁹God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

So, when I started writing weekly, I told you there might be more when I felt extra spirity. Ok, that happened. This morning, I had the opportunity (I use the term loosely) to leave home before sunrise and drive to a 7:00 breakfast as part of our Annual Conference meeting.

Driving east, I was suddenly struck by the beauty of the pre-dawn sky and felt an overriding sense of God’s Spirit wrapped around Creation, embracing all that is. I realized that listening to “Morning Joe” on Sirius radio did not fit with my accidental devotional so I asked my ever-constant companion Siri to play Carrie Newcomer. Now, as you may have figured out if you followed my Advent devotionals, Carrie Newcomer has LOTS of songs (like 80-ish). So a random selection from Apple’s artificial intelligence could produce any. Imagine my surprise when the AI choice was “Shelter in the Sky”. (Ok, this is really coming together)

As I listened I was reminded of the scripture that invites us into the ordering of Creation, not the Creation itself, but the way God takes the canvas and turns chaos into order, the order that we experience, the order beyond our understanding, the order that continues. And what I realized is that that ordering didn’t just happen once. There was not just seven days or seven billion years in which God ordered Creation but rather God does it everyday—over and over and over again. Creation…again.

At the beginning

When the earth moves to greet the new day and the light begins to come to be

The sky stretches itself across the canvas of creation with colors of pink and coral, yellow and salmon, and beneath it the grey-blue horizon takes the light unto itself.

And in that light, the earth begins to be revealed, the land, the waters, distinct from each other, distinct from the sky.

And in the shadows, in the first light of the morning, trees stand to greet the light, and blooms open to take the light forth.

Then as the earth turns toward the light, the ball of light appears, peeking from behind the horizon.

And all of God’s creatures rise to meet the day, the crawlers, the runners, and humankind.

And as the day begins, creation once again comes to be, filled with the breath and Word of God, recreated, respoken, renewed. And it is very very good, this Creation…again.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Home Repairs

June 7, 2024 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Peace, Unity

Scripture Text: Mark 3: 20-35 (Proper 5B)

²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” ²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” ²³And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. ²⁷But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. ²⁸“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; ²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” ³¹Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” ³³And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Oh, who are we kidding? Family reunions are hard. Jesus has returned home. And the family was not all that supportive of him. Doesn’t your family reunion include some people that you sometimes wish would just be quiet, maybe not speak their mind so freely, maybe learn to filter what they say? See, Jesus was not echoing the church leaders. What a troublemaker! All of the stuff he was saying did not makes sense. So, they accuse him of being possessed by a demon. (Yes, that’s always very impressive when your family does that!)

So, Jesus, in true Jesus fashion, began teaching in parables. “Really, people? I mean, if I were possessed, if I were Satan or a demon or something, then how in the world could I heal people? How in the world could I speak of this God of grace and forgiveness? If I WERE evil and I preached AGAINST evil, then it would all fall anyway. Because any house that is divided will fall. God is a God of forgiveness. But we have to listen. We have to listen to who the Spirit is calling us to be or we cannot be close to God.”

Jesus is not denying our place in the world; Jesus is calling us to realize that the world needs us to move beyond that place. We are called to embrace our larger family, to open our eyes to their needs, to open our minds to the part of God that they can show us, and to open our lives that they might be a part of us. That is what it means to have a servant’s heart, what it means to be part of the family of God—not only to give what we have to others, but to share our very lives with them.

So, why are we being warned that our house is going to fall down? Oh, it’s not talking about our individual house. It’s also not talking about our house of worship or our denomination. (Although my own United Methodist Church has spent a little bit of time falling down lately! We have not been the bastion of unity!) And it’s also not talking about our country (although we could stand to learn some lessons from it!) It’s talking about all of us. It’s talking about the world. It’s talking about a world that right now is divided. No, correct that…it’s downright splitting at the seams. We are all so distracted by our own individual needs. We spend so much time preserving our own opinions and even wrapping ourselves in our own flag (uh, yeah, you’re not supposed to wrap yourself in the flag!) that we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten that we are here for each other. We have forgotten that we are called to be the hands and feet and mind of Christ in the world.

So, go with me here…imagine us all standing in a circle. But you know the way we are. We stand an appropriate distance apart, not wanting to violate acceptable personal space standards and certainly not wanting anyone to violate ours. And we miss noticing that our neighbor is hurting, that our neighbor is hungry, that our neighbor needs help to ward off an enemy that has attacked them and tried to take their country. (Sorry, trying not to get political here!) We want to help but we don’t want to get TOO involved. And we certainly don’t want it to affect us. But that’s not the way a house works. Houses can’t exist with holes in them. Houses can’t exist with its parts sprawled across “acceptable” space. So, step in. Make the circle smaller. Step in enough that you’re forced to touch each other. (Yes, it’s uncomfortable!) You know what would make it more bearable? Embrace each other. It creates more comfort, more space. And yet it still holds the house together. And we start to see each other differently.

You know, if we could, if the laws of physics permitted, we could step in again. We could truly become part of each other. That’s what God intended. God intended for us to become part of each other and, in that way, as the circle came closer and closer to the center, we would also come closer to God. We were not created to exist alone, painfully holding the pieces of the house together. The house is all of us. And if we hold on, we can repair it.

It doesn’t mean that we will not have disagreements. I don’t even know if it means that we all like each other. God made us very different from one another. Thanks be to God. Because those differences are what wakes us up to the movement of God’s Spirit in our midst. But we’re called to respect each other, allow each other the freedom to be who God calls each of us to be, and, more than anything, we’re called to love each other—in our own families, in our church, and as we move, filled with God’s breath and empowered by God’s Spirit, into the world where God already is.

There is a story of a father who was desperately trying to keep his children entertained. It was a wet Saturday, the children were bored, and they were beginning to get on his nerves. But then he came up with what he thought was a very inventive (and, hopefully, a time-consuming) activity for them. He took a magazine and found a map of the world printed on one page. He tore out the page and proceeded to cut it up with scissors into small pieces. Then he jumbled up all the pieces and placed them in a pile on the floor, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He then gave his two young sons the task of putting the map together again, thinking that it would surely keep them quiet for some time. Imagine his amazement when, less than five minutes later, they returned with the completed map. “How,” he asked, “did you manage to put it back together again so quickly?” “Oh, it was easy,” replied on of his sons. “You told us it was a map of the world, and when we looked at the pieces, at first we didn’t know where to begin to sort it all out. It seemed impossible. But then we realized that there was a picture of a person on the other side, so we just put the person back together again. When we turned it over, the world had come back together again as well.” (From One Hundred Wisdom Stories From Around the World, by Margaret Silf)

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for your leader…We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Hopi Elders)