The following is an excerpt I adapted from my most recent worship service. Our Soul Matters monthly theme is Practicing Resistance, and my writing for this service focused on Presence, Rest, and Pleasure as Acts of Resistance:
I believe a large and underrated part of decolonizing and liberating efforts is to prioritize space for imagination – a practice that’s often perceived by both who have fallen into oppressive and oppressed patterns as frivolous, naïve, or even immature. Yet, imagining is vital, life-sustaining, dedicated labor, infused with play and beauty. Bell hooks writes, “To be truly visionary, we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.” And poet Rita Dove, who said, “… without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not something that’s just related to the arts. Every scientist that I have met who has been a success has had to imagine. You have to imagine it’s possible before you can see something.”
There are infinite questions we can ask ourselves and our communities as we create space for imagination – the following are some that, again, come from Rest as Resistance… I invite you to read over them, sit with them, perhaps journal with them:
- What do I feel called to do?
- How can I create space for me and my community to heal? What needs healing in me?
- Can I reimagine rest by creating smaller moments for it daily or weekly?
- How is my heart?
- Who am I being?
- What am I holding?
- What story am I telling myself? What is a more liberating story I can tell?
- How can I create rest in this moment?
- Am I ready to change?
A reflective activity you are welcome to participate in, if you wish, is using your choice of mark-making materials provided here today to sketch out and map a visual of what intentional care and rest look like to you. Consider different types of self-care (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), perhaps create a center symbol of what well-being means to you, and draw or list what feels restful and nourishing and spaces, people, and practices support that. You might additionally consider noting what obstacles keep you from resting. Here is a video from the author, Tricia Hersey, herself on video at the 2025 R.E.S.T. Conference (which is an acronym for Restoration, Enlightenment, Solidarity, and Transformation) hosted by Early Childhood Educators of Color to listen while you reflect:
https://youtu.be/NCgVew2851Y?si=oz2_myJRGjPbkmGI
(Image attached is from my first year at UUFM, when I had the opportunity to travel to Racine for the LREDA winter symposium the month prior to the pandemic shutdown – Siena Retreat Center was such a lovely place)
Upcoming events:
Mindful Movement in the UUFM Sanctuary, Mondays at 11am in January
https://uufm.breezechms.com/form/06c0e932
Zine Workshop, Wednesday, January 14th, 6:30-8pm