Over recent days, my spirit has been heavy with grief and anger at the slow revelation of accounts of sexual violence and the failure of institutions to provide accountability from Cornell University in 2024. There are so many pieces of this story that are heart-breaking, and I pray for the specific people involved, particularly the woman known as Jane Doe. 

I also know that this act of violence is not isolated or unique. Far too many of us, especially women, have experienced sexual assault. Far too often, these stories of abuse are not taken seriously, victims are held responsible, perpetrators face little to no accountability. 

I pray God’s tender, healing care for all who have been harmed.

I pray God’s fierce, transforming power would change all the people and systems that do violence.

I know that the violence of campus sexual assault is not disconnected from other violent devaluation of human life: from the racism embedded in our immigrant detention centers and prison systems, from the sexism that denies equal power and authority to women, from the violent logic of war as it chooses whose lives are worthy of sacrifice or are appropriate collateral damage. It’s also not disconnected from the devaluation of all life, and of the land itself, that is embedded in a culture that values the resources that can be extracted or sold off of it.  

In resistance to this violence, I invite you to join me in lament and in prayer. We are called to shed tears, for the grief and pain born by people and places that are treasured by God. That includes every person and every place. Those who have been harmed are worthy of our lament, and our tears and prayers are testimony to that. Their true sacredness is never diminished or negated by violence.

I have had a line from a Wendell Berry poem, “How to Be a Poet (to remind myself),” stuck in my head all week: “There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places.” I hear a call of invitation in his words: to be the kind of people and communities who see and believe that God’s sacred presence is still present–who re-value what has been devalued, who reaffirm the truth underneath the deceptive lies of violence. 

May we have the courage to be undeterred by violence, so we continue to see the sacred beauty in ourselves and one another. And may this give us the courage to take steps forward toward restorative, transformative accountability and justice.

grace and peace,
Pastor Molly