In Case You Missed the Juneteenth Lovefest on Substack
Monday brought uplifting messages of loving thy neighbor from Jay Kuo, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, and James Don BlueWolf.
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Welcome to PeaceLinks, a gathering place for links relating to peace, cooperation, the middle ground, and simple decency. I save these links for my own pleasure and inspiration and am pleased if others enjoy them, too. Today brings 3 links from inside Substack. (Note: I usually post on Fridays, but the post comes a little early this week.)
On Monday of this week in the U.S., we observed the federal holiday called Juneteenth, recognizing the date in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, declaring the liberation of enslaved people in Texas two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the end of the Civil War.
Naturally, I looked for Substack posts about the holiday on Monday, or about peace and freedom generally, and I’m sure they’re out there, but what fell to my eye unasked was a trio of posts about loving thy neighbor. It’s not exactly the Juneteenth message, but it’s a PeaceLinks message, and I couldn’t resist the way these three Monday readings underscored and echoed each other. When things fall together unasked, well, whaddya do?
Enjoy . . .
usually breaks down legal issues in the headlines with outstanding clarity and depth in his newsletter, . On Monday, acknowledging the Juneteenth holiday and Pride month, he took a break from his usual beat to share some pictures and reflections from a family wedding. His “Message of Hope, Sprung From Love” is a quick read, a short post about his niece’s international, inter-everything wedding. It gave me a lift, as I hope it does for you.I have always been partial to an informed, scholarly, Thanksgiving feast of a sermon, so it was a pleasure to come across
’s newsletter, , some time ago. Rabbi Danya has been working her way through the Torah, providing contemporary, inclusive interpretations along the way, and this week she made it to the central verse in the central book. She speaks emphatically about the line at the center of the Torah from which radiates “the rest of spirituality, the rest of service to the divine, the rest of our work down here as people, the rest of everything.” She offers several examples about how to live it. Any guesses what it is? (Hint: There’s a version of it in the Ten Commandments also, and Jews and Christians both hold it in the highest esteem.)I’ve saved for last a short poem, read aloud by author
on his The poem is called “Eating Heart,” and I had to think twice about it before I realized how well it fit with these other two posts. (I love when a poem makes me think twice.) Pay attention to the unexpected guests in the poem, and how they are treated compared to the expected ones. The same? Or different? I’m grateful for the audio recordings that convey the author’s smile in them. I think you’ll agree this poem brings perfect closure to today’s post.Thank you,
, , and for the inspiration of your writing and your big hearts!