Today I offer a reading of a Service of Healing originally written for a worship setting in Atlanta, Georgia. This reading reminds us to hang on to hope, to love, and to all that is good as we struggle in these uncertain times.

Today I’m going to talk about nurses and their tradition of sacrifice. I’m recording this during the shelter-at-home mandate in my city during this coronavirus pandemic. I want to use this podcast to thank some of the people who are selflessly working to help bring this crisis to an end and who are working to help ease the suffering of all who are ill at this time. I’m also going to talk about some of the famous nurses in United States history.

In this podcast, I talk about people making one right choice at a time today. There’s a quote from Frozen 2 that says, “When one can see no future, all one can do is the next right thing.” I’m discussing what each of us can do in the moment we are in to not only help others but to also bring joy to ourselves as we do it. There are some wonderful things that individuals and communities are doing to think outside of their own worries and work to help others.

Today I’m going to talk about the role historians play in whose stories we are hearing and which people we are seeing. They are uncovering stories of people that have brought hope and healing and innovative ideas to our communities in the past and paved the way for us to do so today. Historians are reminding us that people can make a difference and bring about so much good in the world. These stories being brought to light by today’s historians help me better understand the stories of the people around me…the diverse people who make up my community—my local community and my global community. They weave all of us together through a foundation of hope and courage and perseverance that we may have never known we shared.

Today I talked about those people seeking truth. When I look back over the podcasts I’ve done throughout the last two years, I’ve chosen topics that need a light shined on their truths…I’ve highlighted groups that really seek to know the truth about people and circumstances and work to help us see the truth about others. Life itself is bigger than any one person or group of people. Life and its accompanying breath and love and hope draw us all together in an interconnected bond that we often fail to realize. When we disconnect ourselves from the bigger picture, we lose part of our humanity and part of our connection to a love and a hope bigger than ourselves.

Today I’m talking about two groups of Moms who have given me the courage to speak out and to love and to find hope for all people. My silence though the years allowed all of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community to continue. There is no pride for me in all that I failed to say—didn’t do. For the people I never fought for and spoke up with. I’m so glad the LGBTQ community has never given up the fight even when so many of us stayed silent. I’m silent no more. I’m a proud Mama Bear giving Free Mom Hugs. See you at the next Pride Parade…Happy Pride Month…Happy World Pride. You are loved…be courageous…be strong…be you….

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about poetry. April is National Poetry Month, in case you didn’t know. National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. So, in honor of this month, I’m reading here several of my poems from my book titled Looking, Seeing published in 2018.

In today’s podcast, I want to highlight two libraries that are doing an exceptional job of reaching out to others and using their resources to meet the needs of their communities. First, let’s look at Chicago’s public library system and then the Miami-Dade Public Library System and the community programs that are truly changing their communities.

So, teens are definitely worth looking to see. I’m not going to talk about teens in general, though. I’m going to talk about some teens that have become very special to me because they are friends with my son.

This month is not about our white interpretation of Black History Month. It’s about us looking to see the black neighbors in our community…hearing the black voices in our nation…and going back and seeing history with a brutal honesty…finding truth in the black voices that we have too often tried to erase. Includes a partial reading of King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail."