Dear Ones,

From my sermon August 22, 2021:
The horrors of war, of refugee migration, of so-called natural disasters, of a deadly rampaging disease—these all impact us in different ways. It is very easy to feel isolated and alone. It can feel, especially with the pandemic, like this world of trouble is descending upon our own individual heads. But we are not alone. This world of trouble is not happening only to you or to me. It is happening to all of us.
The impact is worse for some than for others. How can we act, how can we all act, in ways that are life-giving and life-sustaining? How will we embrace the reality that everything old is appearing again, and that it is we who need to be, in some critical and crucial senses, made “new”?

One way is to remember that we have all done hard things before. We kept ourselves and our loved ones safe last year, by doing hard things we did not necessarily want to do. We can do those old things with renewed energy, if we also do something else as well: in the words of Rev. Theresa I. Soto, “If we hold hope close. If we rely on our values and our ethics to guide us in uncertain times. To turn to love like a North Star and to the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.”

We know we are here to build a greater world.  This work will continue and can be a solace in this time of isolation and trauma. We have a choice, and it is not the choice of simply returning to our in-person lives. It is the choice, if need be, to continue with, and to double down on, our physically distanced lives, but also to return this fall renewed. Renewed for the work of justice-making, of liberation-demanding, of community-building efforts that define us as Unitarian Universalists. We can return renewed to offer compassion to our siblings displaced and traumatized by war and forced migration.  We can return renewed to resist and to dismantle the excessive militarism that pollutes our world, literally and morally, and victimizes the powerless.

We Unitarian Universalists, we are a people of community, defining our efforts to grow intellectually and spiritually in relationship with each other and not alone. Together in compassionate companionship, we share, we listen, we consider and reconsider, proclaim and reexamine, our understandings of the holy and our desire to ensure that we live our short and precious lives with purpose and meaning. May you feel the call to build community for the good of us all, as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May it be so.

Blessings, Rev. Rita