African-American preacher, theologian and mystic Howard Thurman (1900-1981) wrote a wonderful poem called “The Threads in My Hand.” It begins this way:

“Only one end of the threads, I hold in my hand. The threads go many ways, linking my life with other lives.”

He goes on to describe how one thread is connected to the life of one who is sick, a thread needing to be held tenderly. Another thread comes from the hands of an old, old friend who, quite unintentionally, we have lost touch with and so that thread has slackened and fallen limp. A third thread is a tangled mess that won’t come right. It represents times of angry words, false starts and past mistakes–all disappointing events, but still things we hold onto; and so that thread is in our grasp as well.

Lent is the season for examining the threads we hold in our hands. It is a time to ponder the ties that bind us to one another. Some threads extend forth to family, young and old, or to friends, near and far. Some connect us to people who depend on us for support; others link us to people to whom we rely on in times of need. And some are a “tangled mess,” complicated and knotty, full of memories of regret, disappointment, and dark nights of the soul.

Thurman named a fourth thread, one that comes from a “high-flying kite [that] quivers with the mighty current of fierce and holy dreaming, invading the common day with far-off places and visions bright.” This is the thread linked to the best in the human spirit. It is that part of us that dreams dreams and dares to work for a better tomorrow, knowing that “hope is the thing with feathers” (Emily Dickinson).

But this aspirational thread is not enough. One more is needed, which Thurman describes in the poem’s final paragraph:

One thread is a strange thread–it is my steadying thread; When I am lost, I pull it hard and find my way. When I am saddened, I tighten my grip and gladness glides along its quivering path; When the waste places of my spirit appear in arid confusion, the thread becomes a channel of newness of life. One thread is a strange thread–it is my steadying thread. God’s hand holds the other end.

The line from Lent to Easter is like God’s steadying thread of faith. Though one of the many threads we clutch in our hands, it is the one that leads us home when we are lost, lifts our spirits when we are sad, and brings us resurrection life when we encounter the shadow of death. This thread may seem fragile and strange at times, which it is, but its value comes solely from who holds the other end–the One who is with us always, who has promised to never let go. In that is our hope and our comfort and our Easter joy. Thanks be to God!

On the list of best non-fiction books for 2010 is a book by Isabel Wilkerson called The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. It is a lively account of the experiences of more than six million African-Americans who migrated from the Southern states to the North in search of better jobs and living conditions. It tells the stories of three individuals who left Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana between 1937 and 1953. It is fascinating to read these stories of exhausting cross-country trips across a very segregated countryside, and how the families ended up in crowded apartment houses and ghettos, having to confront incredible prejudices regarding these new urban workers.

While Pittsburgh was not one of the destinations for the book’s main characters, our city did appear in one chapter.

“Many companies didn’t hire colored workers–not because of an explicit Berlin Wall of exclusion written into law, as in the South, but because their white workers just wouldn’t stand for it. A glass plant in Pittsburgh tried to hire colored workers, but the white workers ran them out by cursing them and making conditions so unpleasant they were forced to quit. At a steel mill there, the white bargemen threatened to walk out when black workers were introduced among them. Millworkers were only appeased by the provision of separate quarters for the colored workers.” (p. 316, slightly edited)

These experiences in Pittsburgh were typical of Northern cities receiving migrants from Southern states. Yet an additional value in studying this historical narrative is to consider how migration and “uprootedness” is so central to the Christian story. No matter where you turn in the bible, you run into stories of people on the move, trying to “sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land” (Ps. 137). Stories like Adam and Eve living “east of Eden,” Abram and Sarai moving toward Palestine, Moses and the Hebrew people seeking the Promised Land, Ruth following Naomi from Moab to Bethlehem, Jesus and his disciples walking the back roads of Galilee, or Paul spreading the gospel on his various missionary journeys.

In our own lives, think how often people move today and recall for yourself what it feels like to settle into a new community. Remember that one criteria of faith and righteousness involves how well we welcome the stranger in our midst. The migration experiences of previous generations continue today for many, many people in our own city. How well are we as individuals and as a congregation welcoming the sojourner and traveler?

One of the phrases we are considering as part of our church’s Strategic Vision process is “radical hospitality.” Give some thought to how that phrase can come alive for you in your daily walk of faith. As followers of Christ called to forgive as we’ve been forgiven and to love as we’ve been loved, we are also to welcome as we’ve all been welcomed. Perhaps by doing the latter work first, the other two categories will be easier to accomplish as well.