Minister’s Message

It’s been a doozy of a week, and it’s only Wednesday. Another inexplicable shooting of a Black man by police, followed by what appears to be armed militia murder of protesters and a teen who will have to live with this act for the rest of his life. A political convention that taxes all amazement with its relentless lies, bizarro-world misrepresentations, and craven denial of American norms and laws. Out-of-control wildfires in California, fueled by long-standing drought conditions. A category 4 hurricane to hit Texas and Louisiana tomorrow morning, accompanied by tornadoes in Arkansas and Mississippi as well. COVID-19 cases rising throughout the Midwest, including our own towns.

All of this and more on top of the ordinary sorrows of our everyday lives—grief at the loss of loved ones, frustration about illness and confinement, schools opening with few sure ways to ensure novel coronavirus can be contained, the overwhelm of moving houses, job insecurity, housing insecurity, food insecurity. It feels hard to be hopeful as climate systems and weather systems and political systems and cultural systems converge and collide across the planet, so very much out of our control. I am with you. I am feeling this, too.

Yet hope is possible, even necessary, when we remember that we are not alone. We experience all of this within communities of care and relationship, including our UUFM community. Compassionate companions are only a call or away. Hope is possible when we see our shared values reflected in a statement from Rev. Erik David Carlson of the Bradford Community Church Unitarian Universalist in Kenosha, WI.: “While we are relieved that our church home mostly survived the inferno in the lot next door, we affirm that we would rather lose 100 buildings than one more life to police violence.” Read the full statement here.

Hope is possible when you are aware of unintended consequences as climate systems and human systems inflect one another. According to the website PositiveNews.com, “Earth Overshoot Day – the day on which human consumption exceeds the amount nature can regenerate in a year – [arrived] on 22 August this year, more than three weeks later than it did in 2019.” In other words, the pandemic has meant less consumption, and that is good for the planet. Some under-consumption surely was a negative impact on certain of us—less to eat, less healthcare. And for those of us with more spending power, we may learn that we can do with less, and even less, perhaps pushing “Earth Overshoot Day” later each year until we stop excessive extraction from Earth. You can read the story here.

Hope is something we practice when we look at the events of our lives and choose to work for what we want this world to be—more kind, more just, more equitable. Together, each of us is part of the work of building hope. I pray this you remember, today and every day, as you remember also that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.