The Editors: Singing Like Sparrows

IN HER REFLECTION on the work of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, Sarah James sees Brooks’ poetry as asserting “our collective right to dream of a humane world.” At Sojourners, we ground our “dream of a humane world” in God’s dream for all creation to thrive — each sparrow, each planet, each one of us. And yet, our adversary attempts to occupy our souls like a “roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8). It’s not just you who is overwhelmed, destabilized, scared. We mark five years of living with covid-19, as Céire Kealty reflects. President Trump is staging an all-out attack on immigrant families, as Ken Chitwood reports, while churches work to offer protection in the face of harsh deportation policies. When surrounded by the deafening “roaring lion,” it’s tempting to become small and defensive. But, as Edgar Rivera Colón writes in our cover feature, God invites us into life-giving soul work to sustain us in risky love and activism. Even when our hearts are shattered, God is ready to fuse them together. Just ask. Brooks wrote, “Life is for us, and is shining. / We have a right to sing.” Let’s be like the sparrows and sing.