Minister’s Message
Dear Friends,
Living with pain and frustration deepens isolation in these times when we are all forced, for our health and safety, to remain secure in our homes and separated from those we love and need. It is easy to forget that we are part of a larger web of relationship. The interdependent web of all existence is our reality, even if we don’t always notice it. At any given moment, parts of it come to our awareness, or fade from it. But our own awareness does not affect the reality. We are all and always connected.
As a reminder of our connection to the larger UU world, I report that First Unitarian Church of Louisville, KY has become a sanctuary for citizens protesting the lack of criminal indictments in the death by police in March of Breonna Taylor. You can read a news story here and Facebook posts from their minister Rev. Lori Kyle here about how worship, including protest as a form of worship, continues, as well as here where you will find the beauty and risk of living into one’s faith.
First Unitarian Church does its work in partnership with the Clergy Emergency League, a group that formed this year in the spirit of the pastors of the Confessing Church resisting the Third Reich in Germany. Today in America, clergy united following the actions of Donald Trump outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington DC on June 1, 2020. These clergy, including Unitarian Universalist clergy, resist using “Christianity to justify a version of ‘law and order’ that is based on white supremacy,” and they will not stand for the “co-opting [of] religious symbols to claim an authority [the President] does not have.” Such actions cloaked in religion push our country “to the brink of authoritarian dictatorship and martial law.”
One founder of the group, Fr Troy Overton, Pastor of St Thomas More and Our Lady of Mt Carmel Churches, wrote to a private Facebook group on the night of September 24: “I have lived here nearly all my life and never seen the like since the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As we continue to mourn the death of our Breonna Taylor and others, last night two police officers were shot during protests. Things are escalating daily. Join me in praying that this powder keg does not explode.” And “Kudos to Lori Kyle here, Pastor of First Unitarian Church! Opening the doors of her community’s church gave a prophetic witness to all ministers in our city.”
Moving for justice is difficult, with concerns sometimes in conflict. May we be inspired by the Unitarian Universalists and all people of faith who take risks for a better, more just world. I pray that you remain aware of the web of which you are all a part and never apart from, as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.
Blessings, Rev. Rita (image by James Eades)