Dear Friends,

The political news is bleak again. The injustice against Black People and People of Color is on full display as candidates of both parties try to convince us that they will save this nation from the forces that would rather tear it apart than move creatively by means of our diverse understandings of community and authenticity. Candidates of all stripes for whom racial equity has too often taken a back seat or been ignored altogether. The justice system, always incomplete and inadequate as is so true for all human institutions, is under full attack, no semblance of impartiality permitted when it comes to the current president’s power and influence on behalf of those who serve him. It is easy to grow tired and numb, to want to shut off and retreat into our individual comforts.

Many of us can do this. Many of us with some economic and medical security, with reliable housing and more than adequate food, we can go back to sleep, though our rest will likely be uneasy. How do we cope? How do we have hope? How do we gain the resilience to battle such storms and to live unbroken into an unimagined future?

I am still riding the tide of the Youth Worship Service last Sunday, immensely grateful for the courage and the companionship that the youth of this Fellowship enacted and revealed to our multi-generational congregation. It is not easy to stand and speak before the Fellowship, to play the music of one’s heart, to smile in welcome when one is shy. But our Youth did all this and more. With the support and encourage of their guides, Lee and Barb, they provided models for the resilience we all need to cultivate so that we remain hopeful in the face of suffering and oppression impacting all of us. Models in the music beautifully played by Arlo and Edward. In the smiles of welcome from Jocelyn and Zoey. In words Anika chose and read from Dorothy Day: “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.” In the story Casey read to the children: every drop of water matters. In the words Eleanor crafted: “Hope is something that counteracts fear, longing and pain.” “Each of you have a spark of hope in you. So, how are you going to kindle that flame?”

May we all find the resilience to draw together to fight our own fear and work for a just community, as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May be feel it so.