June 5
Dear Friends,

There are many reasons I love the Soul Matters theme of Beauty. Celebrating our communal loveliness with flowers is certainly one reason. But there is more, much more, to it. Process theology, a way of thinking about the sacred that deeply influences my understanding, teaches us much that is unexpected about Beauty. To theologians Alfred North Whitehead, Bernard Loomer, and Henry Weiman, Beauty is not mere prettiness, not classical symmetrical alignment, and not the opposite of ugly. Rather, Beauty is a diversity of forms. Beauty is variety and differentiation. Beauty is the play of the universe and the ground of our human reality. Everything is Beautiful. Life is Beautiful. Thus, dandelions and roses are not opposites to each other, one lowly and the other high, one ugly and one pretty. Both are Beauty, because both are part of a diversity of forms, a panoply of possible and actual variation with consequences in the reality we experience in altogether human ways.

The actual opposite of Beauty is “mono-“: mono-color, monoculture, monotony. And anything “mono-“ attempts to destroy the exuberant manifestation of Beauty as it plays out in our lives. “Mono-“ gives us a false impression of reality and dulls our senses and sensibilities. And sometimes we choose the “mono,” without even realizing it. Beauty is both wonderful and terrible. Beauty requires us to know and to feel all the possibilities and actualities of life—the easy and the hard emotions, the pretty and the ugly parts of our lives and our histories.

Thus, the month of Beauty is the perfect time to explore the tragedy of our national history, the triple braid at our foundation—freedom, enslavement, and genocide. To confront such a diverse reality takes courage and companionship, and so I hope you will join me this Sunday.

But wherever your life takes you this week, go remembering that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so.

Blessings and best wishes, Rev. Rita