Dear Ones,

The Soul Matters theme for the month of May is Creativity, and what a great topic to explore as the Fellowship engages transition and transformation. Neurobiologist Anne-Marie Willis tell us that “We design our world, while our world acts back on us and designs us.” There has been quite a bit of buzz about AI technology and its potential perils to replace artistic production and any number of work roles that human beings need to survive in our contemporary world. Humans created AI, and now it appears to be poised to re-shape our own human existence. That seems very scary.

And yet can we not take this idea from Willis and flip it on its head. If we design our world and then it designs us back, it is really a matter of what we each and all put out into the world that will come back to us. If we want flowers, we plant them. If we want kindness, we act with kindness. If we want justice, we act justly. These are not simply empty wishes for something we want to come true. They are the call we must make to ourselves and each other, in this loving religious community, to imagine and then put out into the world the world as we want it to become.

As the Fellowship changes, remember your deepest desires for a world made good, and let that goodness show to others so that together the good reality can become the one reflected back to you. I pray you heed that call to co-creation as you remember 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 and warm wishes, Rev. Rita