Date: April 8, 2022
The Eucharist last night was very moving. The music was powerful; the chance to gather and receive the Eucharist in both kinds was good, and the sermon was vitally important.
Our preacher, the Rev. J. Lee Hill D.Min., missioner for racial justice and healing, from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, weaved together a careful reading of Scripture with the amazing and highly significant poetry of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. As the Rev. Hill explained, Benjamin Mays was the civil rights leader, and president of Morehouse College, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was there. Dr. King described Mays as a major influence on his work, and Mays gave a eulogy at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
The poem is powerful. Let us read it afresh and hear its message:
I have only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it.
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.
But it’s up to me
to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
but eternity is in it.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President