Dear Friends,

January is the month of Imagination, and imagination is always a double-edged sword.

Our imaginations enable us to conceive alternative realities for ourselves and our world—possibilities of lives free of abuse or torment or restriction, possibilities of societies free of racism, war, and environmental devastation. Our imaginations prepare the way for the solutions to reach these new and better futures. What future seemed foreclosed for you, that you imagined and then found ways to attain? Who dreamed desegregation, and the means to achieve it? Who among us will imagine a piece of the solution to climate crisis? Or an end to war?

And also, our imaginations enable us to view some people perpetually threatening and potentially dangerous. Our imaginations permit us to be hopeless about the prospects of a changing planet. Our imaginations lock us into the belief that our current political divisiveness is permanent and unchangeable. How easy it is to believe that the world cannot be better for all of us, more fair and just. How strangely comfortable to cling to the familiar pain or misery of our individual daily lives?

Imagination is a human capacity that enables us to soar or sink, to hope or to despair. May we use our imaginations in the service of creating good for ourselves, each other, and our world, 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 (she/hers)