It is good to be back in Mankato after my weekend in Buffalo, good to be home. It is good to be once again held within a religious community whose heart is open to the tragedy of another mass shooting and the horror of fires burning homes and destroying lives as people flee the devastation. It is good to be held within a religious community whose heart is open to the disaster of families seeking asylum, seeking to escape violence and poverty only to be humiliated and dumped into border city streets as so much detritus. It is good to be home, in this religious community, in this Fellowship where we hold our hearts open and we hold tenderly each other’s open and sorrowful hearts.
This pain we acknowledge, this pain we feel, is a sign of our human connection, one to each other and each to all. We are the web of interdependence, and only by remembering this can we seek, can we create, the justice that must be served—justice for the innocent, justice for the earth, justice for the vulnerable and oppressed. Our willingness to face these horrors and feel this sorrow is made possible by our togetherness, by our life in community, by remembering that we absolutely can bear the burden of awareness and empathy because we are not alone. We have each other.We remember who we are, each of us and all of us as a Fellowship.

And because the world is raw and chaotic, we must remember to rest. To rest our eyes by gazing into the distance. To turn our faces upward to the warm sun. To pause and watch the fluttering of the remaining leaves as wind passes through the branches of sturdy trees. To light our ovens and bake bread. To share worship as a whole community, grateful for the nourishment we take when we are together of a Sunday.

I look forward to seeing you most any time that I do. And I look forward to seeing you in service this Sunday so that we may celebrate resilience and endurance in the presence of our children and the warm swells of the Choir’s gifts of love, so that we may delight together in recognition of our spiritual ancestors and in our new members, so that we might break bread together. May it be so.

Blessings and best wishes, Rev. Rita