African Methodist Episcopal Church bishops pray over presidential candidate Barak Obama during his visit to their July 2008 quadrennial conference in St. Louis, Mo. Photo courtesy of the St. Louis American

This is the time and this is one place for you who are visiting our site to contribute hopeful thoughts, prayers, poems, meditations, or whatever concerns about our nation are on your heart. Please send us your reflections via e-mail to info@gcorr.org and allow us, if you will, to share your offerings with others in this space. Please include your name, town and state.

After a long, hard-fought political campaign, the United States has finally elected its next President, Barak Obama. Now we look forward, some with mixed emotions, to new leadership that promises to unite the country and move it forward into a hopeful future.

Indeed, now is the time for seeking that hope, along with healing, as the nation pursues new paths to peace, to restored prosperity and to our nobler purposes of justice, freedom and compassion for all people.

Among the painful lessons we have encountered, if not learned, during this election campaign has been how easily our ignorance about race and religion can be manipulated to provoke fear, ridicule and hatred. The festering wounds of bigotry have been pricked and exposed, and now we have much to recover from, even for those who now celebrate electoral victory.

But we can pray for and seek healing through honest discourse about our differences and commonalities, instead of languishing in destructive silence and avoidance. And then we can find our hope through God’s grace and our faithfulness to Christ’s teachings.

It is time for us, in Mahatma Ghandi’s words, to be the change we hope to see in America and in the world. It is time for us, in John Wesley’s words, to do good—all the good we can—to do no harm, and to grow more deeply in love with God while demonstrating our love for all God’s people. The sights and sounds of diverse multitudes anticipating and now affirming the outcome of this historic election gives us at least a cautious hope for the future. And now we want to hear from you.

This is the time and this is one place for you who are visiting our site to contribute your thoughts, prayers, poems, meditations, or whatever concerns about our nation are on your heart. Please send us your reflections via e-mail to info@gcorr.org and allow us, if you will, to share your offerings with others in this space. Please include your name, town and state.

We hope you will return often to this page to pray over the concerns shared here and to offer your own in our common quest for a season of healing and a future with hope. Thank you.

We would like to hear from you.