Minister’s Message
Nov 6
Dear friends,
This beautiful beast showed up in my side yard on Monday. Or should I say, my side yard overlaps with this beautiful beast’s territory. It is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? From whose lens you look, and learning to look through a lens that is not naturally your own. It is possible to do that, to see through another’s eyes, to walk in another’s shoes, to lean into a perspective that is not naturally your own. It is possible with some effort, with some willingness, with the benefit of some grace and humility.

I spent my study leave days last week leaning into the perspective of Black and Brown Unitarian Universalist who love the theologies of our faith tradition and also do not find the social welcome and inclusion that so many of us proclaim is the reason that we are UUs. It was hard to hear that our faith tradition did not feel equally a saving and safe space for our siblings of color. I listened. I sat in my discomfort and defensiveness. I sat in my sorrow and their sorrow. I learned of joy and resilience in spite of, even because of, a lack of welcome and inclusion. I am grateful to have had this opportunity, grateful I was invited in for a time, grateful that the Fellowship provides me the funds and the freedom to develop my spiritual and religious call so that I might serve the Fellowship as it grows and deepens into its Unitarian Universalist call: to be an agent and an accomplice for compassion and justice in this uncertain world.

Yes, we live in uncertain times. All times have been uncertain, for the future is not sealed, it unfolds in complex and beautiful and terrifying ways. Yet, we live. And how shall we live? How shall we live together, moving always toward, creating with our efforts and our love, more compassion and justice? May these words inspire you, as they did me when I read them this morning, to receive the gift that life is, to prepare to receive the joy that abounds in life, and to give gratitude for the opportunity to live and to work for what is humanly best for all of us fragile and beautiful humans.

By Lisel Mueller:
…the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree that it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who – but for endless if’s –
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.

Blessing, Rev. Rita