Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire.

Perhaps you have seen the widespread cartoon image that illustrates the difference between “equality” and “equity” [above]. First drawn in 2012 by Dr. Craig Froehle, it shows two panels. In each, three people of varying heights are trying to watch a baseball game over a fence, and they have three crates to stand on. In the scenario labeled “equality,” everyone gets one crate, which allows the tallest person to tower over the fence, but the smallest person still can’t see the game. In the scenario labeled “equity,” the crates are distributed so that everyone can see over the fence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this cartoon as Unitarian Universalists discuss naming equity as one of the core values of our faith. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about why there is a wooden fence in the first place, and about all of the people in the stands whose access to the game doesn’t depend on the distribution of crates.

If someone were to attend the game in a wheelchair, they’d need more than crates to see over the fence. They’d need an expensive ticket, and a ballpark policy that carves out appropriate and desirable places for wheelchairs to be. (It is purely coincidental but illustrative that this week, a friend who uses a wheelchair and loves baseball took to Facebook to decry the ways in which several major league teams make it harder for him to attend games by putting additional steps in place if one wants to buy a wheelchair-accessible seat.)

It seems to me that true equity is that everyone has access to the game in a way that fits their bodies and brains and not their wallets or the willingness of someone to give them a temporary boost.

It wasn’t until I decided to write about this cartoon, though, that I learned that its original creator researches inequities in healthcare. This makes the difference between getting into the ballpark and trying to see over the fence even more stark. For too many people, inequity leads to death.

I have hope that our Unitarian Universalist embrace of equity will be deeper and more meaningful than a cartoon. Part of the proposed language for what would be our core values reads that “we covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.”

If we are really serious about equity, then, we will work to make our communities—inside and outside of our congregations—fully accessible and inclusive.

This means accessible and inclusive to all bodies. This means accessible and inclusive to different ways that brains work. This means accessible and inclusive to people with different financial means. That means accessible and inclusive to people with histories of trauma and also those who are imprisoned.

It also means that Unitarian Universalists are called to understand ourselves as part of accessible and inclusive communities, so that when we build structures that allow everyone to be part of things, they don’t come across as unfair or unequal.

Have you ever complained that someone else got a crate to see over the fence, even if you didn’t need one?  Sadly, over my years as a minister I’ve fielded way too many similar complaints.

Instead, let us tear down that fence and let everyone into the game. Let’s create space where we can all have the place we need to participate, and where we don’t resent the full participation of others.

The Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco hangs this banner in support of a permanent ceasefire now. The banner is from the Interfaith coalition of Faith Communities across the San Francisco Bay Area. Photo credit: Aisha Hauser

Recently, several people have taken the time to write to us about the ways in which we talk about Israel and Gaza, especially on our weekly talk show, Voices of Unitarian Universalism (aka The VUU). I thought that our wider community would be interested in my response.

It is correct to say that the CLF Lead Ministry Team has taken a clear stance on the current state of the conflict. We believe strongly that the preservation of life is the value that should be most paramount. I have been taught by Jewish teachers that this value is in line with the highest teachings of Judaism. We believe that all lives are worthy of preservation, even if all lives are not equally threatened by violence at present.

We also believe strongly that those with the most power to preserve life have the most obligation to do so. On a recent show of The VUU, my co-minister Christina Rivera eloquently spoke about the power imbalance present right now in Gaza, and why our stance is that Israel needs to be responsible for a cease-fire. Some have noted that Chris made them think; for this we are grateful.

We have not taken a stance on Zionism, nor will we; it is simply not our place as non-Jewish people. We understand why criticizing the actions of the State of Israel might make it seem as if we have done so, but we are clear that the actions of Israel are not on behalf of Jewish people everywhere. We have strongly opposed anti-Semitism in all of its forms, as we oppose all forms of hatred, oppression, and violence.

We have invited Jewish UUs onto the show who share our viewpoint on the abhorrent ways in which current Israeli leadership is dehumanizing Palestinians, abrogating treaty obligations, and murdering innocents. To be frank, we don’t want to feature voices who might support that. I don’t think that academically debating the term “genocide” is worthwhile as hospitals and refugee camps are being bombed. It’s a strong word on purpose.

We are committed to continuing this dialogue in the future. We are working on having Jewish UUs speak on The VUU about the ways in which anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head around the world. When we do so, we will invite people who have been chosen by Jewish UU communities as leaders.

We hope that the CLF community appreciates the values with which we have come to these positions. We hope that you will continue to let us know how we can live out those values, when we agree and when we disagree with each other.

Interdependence has been a central concept to our Unitarian Universalist faith since our current principles were adopted in 1985, and yet, too often Unitarian Universalists have focused on the implications this has for our relationship with the natural world around us, without understanding that we, too, are part of that web.

What does it mean to acknowledge our place in the web of all existence?

Our Universalist ancestors taught us that we all end up in the same place when we die. Centuries ago, they meant that all souls would be in heaven, but I like to expand this theology and filter it through my scientific brain.

I am regularly stopped in my tracks by the unfathomable beauty of this notion that we are inextricably bound to one another. All of our being ends up in the very same place when we die—the same place it came from in the first place, the same pool of atoms and energy that has created all life since the formation of our Earth, the same protons and neutrons that will create all life for the duration of our planet’s existence.

We are one with the stars. With the planets. With the oceans and mountains and ice caps. With the forests and the deserts and the fauna running through them. We are also one with one another. This unity of existence has profound implications for how we live. We need to learn together to make decisions that consider the other beings with whom we share our fragile planet.

The theological notion of interdependence exists in relationship with other parts of who we are, and the most important has yet to be inserted into our principles. The most important concept that interdependence relies upon is accountability.

When we are accountable to someone or something, we hold ourselves responsible to them. When we are accountable, we allow others to measure our success. In justice work, we talk about accountability to those who are most vulnerable, those who are oppressed, those who are the targets of discrimination and hatred.

When we practice accountability in justice work, we take instructions from those who are most effected by the work we are doing.  When we practice accountability, we learn to live the tenets of interdependence.

We understand that climate change is changing our oceans. Carbon dioxide is acidifying them, hotter temperatures are melting ice and causing sea level rise. We understand that we are interdependent with the beings of the ocean, and that our fate as humanity requires that we address their fate.

What does it mean to be accountable to them, though? What does it mean to be accountable to the people of Kiribati, whose island nation is disappearing under the sea? How do we live understanding that our actions might determine whether or not they have a home in a decade?

We understand that modern agricultural systems are wreaking havoc on our planet, on its soil, on its beings, on pollinators and birds and animals. We feel our interdependence with the earth when we eat. What does it mean to be accountable to this knowledge?  How do we change our behaviors to take into account the needs of those most vulnerable to this change?

At CLF, we also understand that the addiction of dominant U.S. culture to mass incarceration is a direct descendant of the systems of oppression that founded this country. The United States began with slavery and genocide and continued into an era of terrorism at the hands of private individuals, and now it is the government itself practicing that violence.

We ask ourselves often what it means to be accountable to our incarcerated siblings, who are the targets of this violence. We ask ourselves often what it means to be accountable to Black and brown communities torn apart by systems of injustice. And now we are asking how our larger faith movement might be accountable to the voices of our incarcerated UU members. It changes the way we do things to practice that accountability.

I have heard some recently say that accountability is something they fear—because accountability requires those of us with power in this world to exercise that power as power-with, and not as power-over. It requires us to take directions, to listen, to understand relationship.

Instead of being something to fear, however, I invite us to think about accountability as the way in which we live our commitment to interdependence.

There is a famous joke about early-20th century U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, who was known as a person of few words. One day, it is said, Silent Cal, as he was known, went to church and his wife Grace stayed home. When he got home, Grace asked him what the sermon had been about. “Sin,” replied Cal. “What did the preacher have to say about it.” Grace asked. Cal paused, sighed, and replied, “He was against it.”

Theologians for millennia have disagreed about the nature of sin, and whether and how sins are ultimately reconciled. Some have declared that, thanks to the great harm done to people perceived as committing sins in the name of religious judgment, it is not even a useful concept.

I believe that having a moral code is useful, and that looking at our actions through the lens of that moral code is a worthwhile exercise. I also believe that we, as Unitarian Universalists, need to be careful not to make “sin” into a permanent mark against someone. Sin is not a useful concept if it is used to make people into the dehumanized “other.”

James Luther Adams, a famous 20th century Unitarian/UU theologian once wrote, using the unfortunately gendered language of his time, “It cannot be denied that religious liberalism has neglected these aspects of human nature in its zeal to proclaim the spark of divinity in man. We may call these tendencies by any name we wish, but we do not escape their destructive influence by a conspiracy of silence concerning them.  Certainly, the practice of shunning the word ‘sin’ because ‘it makes one feel gloomy and pious’ has little more justification than the use of the ostrich method in other areas of life.”

I agree with Adams.

So what is a Unitarian Universalist theology of sin?

Many Christians define sin as that which separates us from God. This, of course, asks humans to pretend that we know what it is that God wants, and we know the danger that thoughts like that have wrought in humanity. I believe that sin is defined as a separation in relationship as well, just not necessarily our relationship with a divine.

Once again, I turn to Adams, who declared that Unitarian Universalists “deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation.” What does this mean? Virtue—and its opposite, sin—are defined by relationships. There is no such thing as goodness or evil in and of themselves—both are defined by the effects of our actions. The effects of our actions on other people as well as on the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.

Sin is what separates us from one another.

Sin defines people as “other.” It makes them invisible when they are right here in front of us. Sin silences. Sin abuses. Sin gaslights. Sin knowingly harms another and then blames them for overreacting to that harm. Sin creates systems of oppression that target people for who they are, and makes those systems of oppression replicate themselves again and again.

My colleague the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon draws upon womanist theologians in her understanding of sin. She writes, “I have come to think of sin as an ethic of domination that desecrates particular lives as well as perpetuating sinful systems. Drawing upon the work of womanist theologians like Emilie Townes and Delores Williams, I conceive of sin as the exercise of control over another in a way that objectifies, or, in Williams’s words, ‘invisibilizes’ others and our connection to them. This domination destroys difference—tearing the fabric of the web of life.”

Gordon continues, “Sin is the acts of domination and annihilation that result in part from our illusions of separateness. Our sin is every moment that we forget or violate our relationships within the web of interconnection that binds together all creatures and our world.”

Sin is what separates us from one another. It is what breaks relationships. It is the point at which one stops listening, the point at which one stops caring. It is the point at which we believe another to be irredeemable.

And sin is something we all must grapple with. We all do it. And we all must seek redemption for it when it occurs. It might not be a permanent mark on our souls, but it certainly is a permanent part of life as we know it, since none of us is perfect.

If someone asks you what your minister had to say about sin, you can tell them I’m against it. 

In the 1940s, as the German army began to impose its totalitarianism across Europe, many people fled in fear of their lives. At the time, the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) committed itself to rescuing as many refugees as possible. Their work was dangerous, and they saved the lives of many.

The documents created to help these refugees escape needed an official logo, so Dr. Charles Joy of the Unitarian Service Committee hired a graphic designer, Hans Deutsch, himself a refugee, to create one. The flaming chalice drew upon ancient religious symbols to be an official seal for the USC. The communion chalice, the holy oils used for blessing in many religions, the altars of Greek and Roman times, and lights put in the window as a symbol of hospitality are all evoked by the flaming chalice.

Throughout World War II, this symbol guided refugees to safety on travel documents, business cards, and in the windows of otherwise hidden offices.

After the war, the flaming chalice gained popularity as a symbol of Unitarianism, and then later of Unitarian Universalism. The ritual lighting of the chalice in UU worship became widespread in our congregations in the 1970s.

Our flaming chalice is still a symbol of life-saving welcome. Where it burns, its light beckons us all to live up to our shared principles and participate in the liberation of all people.

Often, when people find out that I was a scientist before becoming a minister, they make assumptions about how my brain works, or about how I must see the world. These assumptions are based in a perception of science as cold, distant, and rational. And while it is true that I bring a certain rational brain to bear on collecting and analyzing data, that skill is reserved for when it is truly needed.

Instead, my science background invites me to see magic and mystery in the world around me. It invites me to wonder at everyday occurrences—to find the special and the sacred in the blooming crocus, the varied songs of the cardinal, the laughter of children, and the storm blowing in from across the river.

My science background invites me to see all of these things as intricately interconnected to all of existence, and to marvel at how complex it all is.

My science background invites me to realize that the depth of that complexity means that it is impossible that humans will ever understand it fully.

Too often, people see science as an attempt to do just that—to understand everything fully. But any good scientist will tell you that every new discovery brings with it a new depth of understanding of what is still not known. Every question answered means two more questions asked. As Physicist John Archibald Wheeler once said, “We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

My experience of science is that it asks me to see our world as full of wonder. Full of possibilities for understanding. Full of questions that are exciting to pursue.

Many times as a graduate student in cell biology, I holed myself up in a small, dark room with a very large microscope for hours as I experimented on immune cells taken from lungs.  My experiments examined the movement of those cells, and on testing whether the proteins I studied stimulated those cells to move.

It was amazing and humbling to understand that the things I did on the large scale made those cells move on the microscopic one. There, in that small, dark room, looking at those very tiny cells, I could not help but be overwhelmed by my connection to a vast and unfathomable universe.  I could not help but be filled with a sense of wonder and awe.

PHOTO BY DREW HAYS ON UNSPLASH

In this world away from that microscope room, I also see wonder and awe everywhere.

I want to invite you into this wonder-full way of experiencing the world. This way in which everything is an exciting and sacred thing.

When next you read about a scientific study, I want you to imagine the scientists who produced it. I want you to imagine them in their labs, or field stations, or conference rooms. Imagine them asking questions—lots and lots of questions. Imagine them getting more and more excited by the questions before them. And then imagining them figuring out how they are going to ask those questions in their work. Not how they will answer them—but how they will ask them.

When next you experience something you don’t understand (and for me, that is almost every moment of every day), ask questions about it. Change your questions and see if it changes your experience of that thing. Ask other people what their questions are and see if those questions change your experience. Enter into the world of wonder. It’s a wonderful place.

“We are writing this in pencil, not etching it in stone.”  — from the Article II Study Commission Report 1/17/23

One of the defining characteristics of our Unitarian Universalist faith is that ours is a “living tradition.” We do not etch our faith in stone precisely because we hold sacred that it must change. It must adapt to new challenges, it must meet new understandings, and it must evolve based on new experiences and connections.

Members of the Article II Study Commission & some UUA Board/Administration Liaisons (l-r): Dr. Paula Cole Jones, Dr. Rob Spirko, Maya Waller, Becky Brooks, Kathy Burek, Rev. Meg Riley, Rev. Cheryl M. Walker, Satya Mamdani

This change includes our most central language as well, which is why our Association’s Bylaws mandate regular reviews of Article II of the UUA Bylaws, better known as the Principles, Sources, and Purposes of Unitarian Universalism.

The current version of how we articulate the center of Unitarian Universalism is the seven Principles. Those principles were introduced to us in 1985, and were a significant change from the concepts that preceded them. Their passage was not without disagreement, some of which was rooted in a love for the 1961 language.

In mid-January 2023, the commission that has been faithfully working for the past two years released their proposal for an Article II that leads our faith into the future. Most dramatically, it replaces our Principles with seven core Values, each of which comes with a charge to each of us, expressed as a covenant.

The values are centered on Love, named as a spiritual discipline that holds us together, and are named as Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. There’s even a beautiful graphic representation of them in the report. There are more words, of course. And most of what we love about our current Principles lives on in some version in our Covenant.

Of course, this is the central document for the Unitarian Universalist Association, centered in the United States. It is not the guiding force for UU congregations outside of our Association—including non-UUA member congregations elsewhere in our world. It remains to be seen how this understanding of Unitarian Universalism might ripple out and be transformed as it meets the realities of other cultural understandings of our faith. I hope it changes as it does so. It’s a living tradition, after all.

I hope that CLF members will read the report and reflect on this new way of understanding our Unitarian Universalist faith. Delegates to the 2023 UUA General Assembly will vote on a final version of this proposal in June. We will likely hold engagement sessions over the next few months as materials come available to do so. Keep your email open for such announcements.

From the Article II Study Commission Report: a visualization of the new proposed language for Article II, defining six Unitarian Universalist Values, all centered in Love. Graphic design by Tanya Webster.

In 2019 the Rev. Bill Sinkford and the wonderful staff at First Unitarian Portland invited me to join them for “Seminary for a Day,” when we reflected together on how our inherited liberal tradition is accountable to the theological work of liberation. Such transformation is central to the promise I find in our living tradition. I rarely speak of liberal theology in isolation unless specifically asked to do so. This conversation, this accountability, and this transformation are why I consistently draw on my understanding of our liberal and liberating faith. So what does that ask of us in this season where we are working together on expressing our highest values in community?

Recently the Rev. Dennis McCarty in his blog “Thoughts from a Gentle Atheist,” reminded us of the central values of Unitarian Universalism. He writes, “The worthiness of the human condition is one… investigation, research, and intellectual growth is another. Openness to change produced by that intellectual investigation and research is a crucial third.” This promise is described in the current language of Article II as “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning,” and in the latest proposed draft for a revised Article II as both a promise to “collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically,” as well as “learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” The human worthiness that Rev. McCarty highlights is beautifully reflected across both versions, and both call us to the work of justice.

Latin American liberation theologies often speak of a preferential option for the poor, but also for a range of inequities in our living. The “preferential option” teaches that God themself, the work of the Church writ large, our values, and our wisdom are centered on those most impacted by systemic oppression. Traditionally one might say that if we want to know God, we need to live in solidarity with those facing the injustices of poverty and class oppression.

Unitarian Universalists might say that we are most able to co-create the All-Embracing Love that our tradition teaches us when we center those most impacted by long established systems of injustice. We save one another, and remake the sacredness of the world, through prioritizing what is truly needed for that remaking. Anything less drives us away from our faithful living.

PHOTO BY SIIM LUKKA ON UNSPLASH

Today’s Unitarian Universalism asks us to re-engage the largest questions of our living in the service of liberation. I want a Unitarian Universalism that troubles the waters of what we mean by freedom, just as the Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison Reed asked of us quite some time ago. I want a Unitarian Universalism that offers up its power and authority in the service of justice, and embraces new learning and surprise as sacred offerings. This especially when our beloveds directly impacted by injustice over generations somehow still welcome us when we show up in the spirit of lamentation, regret, determination, and a deeply invested discipline of hopefulness that together we might yet survive.

My hard-won hopefulness, as Ecowomanist scholar the Rev. Dr. Melanie Harris would call it, is that many of you might want to build a Unitarian Universalism together that is humble, that demands little from those who have been made to sacrifice much, and that prioritizes its commitments to faithful living even when we don’t quite know how to make our way. That is the Unitarian Universalism that I believe in. Right now, I think it is on a journey from liberal to liberation. And I am orienting myself toward the day when those words have new and fully empowered meanings in the world.

Our hearts break open for the pain of the world. For the pain of our planet, whose delicate balance has come undone, and for all her creatures. For mudslides and floods, for rising seas and melting ice, for storms and droughts.

Our hearts break open for the pain of nations. For the cries of war, for the brutality of despots and dictators. For bombs and guns, trained on enemies whose hearts beat the same as ours. For leaders whose greed goes unchecked while their people starve, whose anger defies reason and ignores compassion.

Our hearts break open for the pain of communities. For hatred that marches down the street, and for history that has not yet been relegated to the past. For acts of terror that leave blood in their wake, for cries for help that go unanswered, for every time those sworn to protect instead inflict harm, for the brutality of our carceral state.

Our hearts break open for the pain in our homes. For sickness and death, for abuse and its aftermath. For those we desperately want to help but cannot. For relationships that require constant work, and for the anger that erupts to signal yet more work is needed. For children who struggle to keep up, bodies that no longer do what we want them to, and siblings who lose sight of what is most precious. Our hearts break open for the everyday pain that being connected and vulnerable brings to us.

PHOTO BY BRUCE HONG ON UNSPLASH

Our hearts break open for the pain in our hearts. For the mistakes we’re still beating ourselves up over. For the imperfections we have yet to embrace. For relationships we have lost and fear are irreconcilable, amends we have yet to make with those we have hurt, and the unfinished business of forgiving ourselves. Our hearts break open for life.

If you care about the world, your heart breaks open on a regular basis. If you care about another person, your heart breaks open on a regular basis. This business we call life, it breaks our hearts open wide. Again and again. And as our hearts break open, we have an opportunity to put them back together differently—to put them back together connected to one another.

Juana Bordas, in her book Salsa, Soul, and Spirit, challenges us to move from “I” to “we,” from the individualism rampant in modern-day European and Euro-American society to a collectivism found in Native American, Latino, African, and African-American communities. As Bordas writes from her own experience, “Latinos cherish belonging, group benefit, mutuality, and reciprocity. Interdependency, cooperation, and mutual assistance are the norm.”

Forming real relationships in community means engaging in the vulnerability of exposing our hearts to the world. And it means finding ways to engage in healing our hearts together—as one community, as a “we” instead of simply a collection of individuals. Forming real community means finding ways of mutuality and connection.

Beloved, you are not alone. You are part of a “we” that extends beyond your understanding. Let us knit our hearts together in community and commit ourselves to mutuality, curiosity, reciprocity, and cooperation.

//

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor del mundo. Por el dolor de nuestro planeta, cuyo delicado equilibrio se ha roto, y por todas sus criaturas. Por avalanchas de barro e inundaciones, por el aumento del nivel del mar y el derretimiento del hielo, por tormentas y sequías.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor de las naciones. Por los gritos de guerra, por la brutalidad de déspotas y dictadores. Por bombas y cañones dirigidos a enemigos cuyos corazones laten igual que el nuestro. Por líderes cuya codicia crece incontrolable mientras su gente se muere de hambre, y cuya ira desafía la razón e ignora la compasión.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor de las comunidades. Por el odio que marcha calle abajo, y por la historia que aún no ha quedado relegada en el pasado. Por los actos de terror que dejan sangre a su paso, por los gritos de auxilio que quedan sin respuesta, por cada vez que los que juraron protegernos hacen daño, por la brutalidad de nuestro estado carcelario.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor en nuestros hogares. Por la enfermedad y la muerte, por el abuso y sus secuelas. Por aquellos que queremos ayudar desesperadamente pero no podemos. Por las relaciones que requieren un trabajo constante, y por la ira que estalla para indicar que se necesita más trabajo. Por los niños que luchan para no quedarse atrás, por los cuerpos que ya no hacen lo que queremos que hagan y por los hermanos que pierden de vista lo más preciado. Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor cotidiano que nos causa el estar conectados y vulnerables.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor en nuestros corazones. Por los errores por los que todavía nos estamos castigando. Por las imperfecciones que aún tenemos que aceptar. Por las relaciones que hemos perdido y que tememos son irreconciliables, por las enmiendas que aún tenemos que hacer con aquellos a quienes hemos lastimado y la tarea pendiente de perdonarnos a nosotros mismos. Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por la vida.

Si te preocupas por el mundo, tu corazón se rompe y se abre regularmente. Si te preocupas por otra persona, tu corazón se rompe y se abre regularmente. Este asunto que llamamos vida, nos rompe y abre el corazón de par en par. Una y otra vez. Y a medida que nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren, tenemos la oportunidad de volver a unirlos de manera diferente, de volver a unirlos conectados con otros corazones.

Juana Bordas, en su libro Salsa, Alma y Espíritu, nos desafía a pasar del “yo” al “nosotros,” del individualismo desenfrenado de la sociedad europea y euroamericana de hoy en día a un colectivismo que se encuentra en los nativos americanos, los latinos, las comunidades africanas y afroamericanas. Según escribe Bordas a partir de su propia experiencia, “los latinos valoran la pertenencia, el beneficio grupal, la colaboración y la reciprocidad. La interdependencia, la cooperación y la asistencia mutua son la norma.”

Formar relaciones reales en comunidad significa comprometerse con la vulnerabilidad de exponer nuestros corazones al mundo. Y significa encontrar formas de participar juntos en la sanación de nuestros corazones, como una comunidad, como un “nosotros”, en lugar de simplemente una colección de individuos. Formar una comunidad real significa encontrar formas de reciprocidad y conexión.

Amados, no están solos. Son parte de un “nosotros” que se extiende más allá de su comprensión. Unamos nuestros corazones en comunidad y comprometámonos con la colaboración, la curiosidad, la reciprocidad y la cooperación.

The following sermon was originally given at the service to formally install our Lead Ministry Team in their role as ministers of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, which took place on June 25, 2022, during UUA General Assembly in Portland, OR. 

Hello beloveds! What a joy to be here with you all this morning, celebrating the installation of the Lead Ministry Team of the Church of the Larger Fellowship! And what an honor to be asked to share a reflection with you all on this joyful occasion.

I have served on the Board of the Church of the Larger Fellowship for the past 4 years. I served as the Board liaison to the nominating committee, and on the search committee, and am now the President of the Board. And yet: when I was asked by the nominating committee if I would consider joining the Board, I was pretty sure I was going to say no.

I didn’t know much about the CLF at the time, and I didn’t think that I had the time or energy to serve on the Board. I was already feeling a little overwhelmed by all of my other commitments, and I had never served on a Board before, and I just didn’t think it was for me. I knew I would have to give something else up to do this work fully, that I didn’t want to say yes and then only serve half-heartedly. And so, I went into the conversation ready to say no.

Christina Rivera, Rev. Dr. Michael Tino and Aisha Hauser, MSW, CRE-ML, were installed as co-lead ministers of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. At right is CLF Board Chair Rev. Aisha Ansano.
© 2022 Nancy Pierce/UUA

I am so grateful that instead, I said yes.

I said yes because I learned what the CLF has been, is now, and can be. I said yes because my wildest dreams for Unitarian Universalism, my deepest hopes of what is possible for this faith, seemed possible because of the CLF. I said yes because I believe that the Church of the Larger Fellowship can help lead us to liberation. It is already doing so. I said yes because the CLF says yes — to justice, to radical welcome, to liberation. I said yes because there was really no other answer.

The Church of the Larger Fellowship has always held space in our denomination for folks on the margins— from our beginnings as a “correspondence church” for geographically isolated Unitarians to today, when over half our membership is incarcerated Unitarian Universalists, and many religious professionals, BIPOC UUs, and geographically- or otherwise-isolated UUs find their spiritual home here. The CLF has been, and continues to be, a place of radical welcome, a congregation that believes in the power of liberation and the potential of Unitarian Universalism to forge a way to that liberation. The CLF is a congregation that continually draws the margins toward the center, that invites us all to think about what is possible and how we might make it come true. The CLF is a place for big dreams and for trying new things, a place where there is so much space and excitement for innovation and experimentation.

The CLF has proclaimed, over and over, that the way we’ve always done things need not be the only way, and then forged ahead to make it so. Can we serve incarcerated Unitarian Universalists with love and dignity, in a system and a world that tries to convince them they have and deserve neither? Yes. Can we engage UUism and the questions of the moment through an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, multicultural lens? Yes. Can we call as the leadership of the largest UU congregation a collaborative team of religious professionals that break expectations? Yes. Can we do difficult, sometimes uncomfortable work with love, knowing that liberation is possible and that we can help make it so? Yes. Yes we can.

Cole Arthur Riley is a writer and poet who created the “Black Liturgies” project on Instagram. In her recent book This Here Flesh, Arthur Riley uses stories from her life to reflect on questions of spirituality and liberation. In a chapter entitled “Dignity,” she writes the following:

Our liberation begins with the irrevocable belief that we are worthy to be liberated, that we are worthy of a life that does not degrade us but honors our whole selves. When you believe in your dignity, or at least someone else does, it becomes more difficult to remain content with the bondage with which you have become so acquainted. You begin to wonder what you were meant for.

So, beloveds: what were we meant for? The wildest dreams of our spiritual ancestors could not have brought us here, and our wildest dreams may never take us where we need to be, but we are going to keep dreaming anyway, keep growing and shifting and trying again. We have a theological mandate for liberation, for worthiness, for honoring our true selves. We believe in our own dignity, and the dignity of others.

We are meant for liberation, for joy, for celebration. We are meant for justice, for compassion, for community. We—Unitarian Universalists, the Church of the Larger Fellowship, our free world and incarcerated and global members—we are meant for all of this, and more. So let us live into it, let us make these moves, let us believe deeply in liberation and act as though we do.

Aisha, Christina, Michael: the search committee chose you, the Board affirmed you, and today the members of the CLF install you, as our Lead Ministry Team, all because we trust your dreams for the future of this congregation and this denomination. This is a time for big dreams, for throwing open our arms and saying come, you have a place here.

But we cannot simply celebrate your dreams and leave you to fulfill them. We will follow your lead, yes, but we — members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and Unitarian Universalists throughout the denomination — we are also going to do this work alongside you. We must — that is the only way it can get done. Not because we don’t trust you to get it done — if I trusted any three people to make it happen, it surely would be the three of you — but because the work of liberation is collaborative, and is going to take all of us to fulfill it. Liberation is the work of community, of relationship, of coming together.

So beloveds — lead ministry team, CLF members, Unitarian Universalists — this is our time. Let us meet this moment, collaborate, and take a giant leap into together the belief that liberation is necessary, and possible, and that we all have a role to play.

Let’s create a world of justice and liberation now, together.

May it be so.

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong has studied the teachings of religions large and small all around the world. And she has, as we all have, witnessed the strife in our world: the pain, the isolation, the injustice, the inequality.

And yet, she realized, no religion teaches that those things are acceptable.  All of the world’s religions, in fact, teach compassion.  They use different words and different concepts to talk about it, but all of them teach their followers to treat other people with kindness and respect.  All of them teach their followers that moral, good people help others.

In her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Armstrong asks us first to learn about compassion.  What do the religions of the world say about it? What have we been taught about compassion—from our heritage, from our families, from our experiences? And most importantly, what does Unitarian Universalism teach about compassion?

We’ve got a principle about it, certainly.  We covenant to affirm and promote, among other things, “justice, equity and compassion in human relationships.” And yet, how often does our practice of this principle stop with promoting justice?

What does it mean to promote compassion in human relationships?

How would our society be different if we made it the norm that we try to feel one another’s pain—that we suffer with one another instead of watching one another suffer. Justice and equity only require the latter—it’s compassion that requires the with.

Our Universalist heritage also encourages us to compassion. The promise of universal salvation, at its most basic, is that all of us are going to end up in the same place when we die (we can disagree about where and what that place is). I don’t think of heaven as a realm for the soul that is outside of what we know—I think of it as right here, in the midst of the world that we know.

Your being, mine, and everyone’s—all part of one, interconnected, closed system.  I am regularly stopped in my tracks by the unfathomable beauty of this notion that we are inextricably bound to one another. The promise of our connectedness requires us to realize our unity with all of creation.

In his 1945 work A Religion For Greatness, Universalist minister and theologian Clarence Skinner emphasized our religious call to work toward the unity of all beings, which he defined as “the coherence of what may seem to be separate, into a oneness. Unity,” he wrote, “means an operative harmony, a functional relationship which belongs to all the parts of a whole.”

Later in this work, Skinner also wrote, “This great religious experience of the unities and the universals, however, tends to direct [humanity] outward toward what is greater than the atomistic human.”

Clarence Skinner pushed to expand the notion of Universalism that his spiritual ancestors had developed.  He called us to a “cosmic mind-set” in which we all realized our connection with—indeed our unity with—everything that is, everything that has been, and everything that ever will be.

We are one with the stars.  With the planets.  With the oceans and mountains and ice caps.  With the forests and the deserts and the fauna running through them.  We are also one with one another.

This unity of existence has profound implications for how we live.

This unity of existence calls us to suffer with those who suffer, because we are they and they are we.

This unity of existence calls us to practice compassion. Our faith teaches us we must.

Integrity is not a trait that can exist on its own. The word is a noun that refers to an entity, quality, state, action, or concept. Whether describing a trait of character or expressing a property of strength, integrity is always related to something else. However it is used, an essential quality of integrity is its role in describing completeness and soundness for what it refers to.

As applied to people, integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong principles. By extension, integrity implies that any organization of persons is more vital when honesty and a striving towards principles promulgated for the good of the whole. These attributes are a source of pride for Americans. We like to believe we define our character as rugged individuals who, by sheer will of force, carve out for ourselves and our families a superior way of life that attracts other such people to form a “more perfect union” governed by fairly applied laws.

James Burke wrote a book in 1985 called The Day the Universe Changed. In the book, Burke describes how seemingly small random events, or isolated moments, can radically change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

I believe such a moment occurred on July 27, 2016 after the Republican National Convention concluded.

My wife and I watched an interview with former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. We were horrified to hear Gingrich explain what we now all understand as “alternative truth.” When confronted with the fact that crime in the United States had decreased, he insisted that facts don’t matter as much as feelings about crime. He said, “The current view is that liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it’s not where human beings are. People are frightened… As a political candidate, I’ll go with how people feel, and I’ll let you go with the theoreticians.”

I believe that was the instant that heralded the death of truth and the political weaponization of fear in our country. It is when temptation overtook our national ethos. We succumbed to fear and ran willingly into the darkness of disenfranchisement, supremacy, and othering. We have been damaged by the false narrative of “exceptionalism” that denies our actual past and obscures our present. Our nation is imperiled because many of us are willing to sacrifice integrity and the rule of law for authoritarian power.

Democracies operate on fact, science, and objectivity, along with law. When there is no basis for action, save feelings, there is no democracy. We knew that, but we abandoned our highest path because a messy democracy became too complicated for some to bear. Newt Gingrich and his ilk smashed our Achilles heel to herd us into temptation and usher us into an era of darkness.

The events of January 6, 2021, may have sealed our fate.

I am terrible at remembering names. I have tried all of the tricks to be able to do that, but nope, not for me. Thank goodness for name tags!

But I remember so many details about so many people, even if I have forgotten their names. I could list them all, but one stands out — the nurse’s aide who held my hand in the emergency room after I was in a terrible car accident when I was 19.

Is it necessary for me to remember this? What if I forgot? Would it matter?

Thinking about memory suddenly became important when my

husband, Sky, was diagnosed with dementia in 2016. I had known something wasn’t quite right with him for a few years. He denied anything was wrong, but eventually agreed to be tested: probable early stage Alzheimer’s. We were stunned.

As we processed this devastating news, Sky said he assumed he would eventually forget his family, but he was mostly afraid that he would forget his Self.

So we read books about memory. It turns out that there are several kinds of memory — ranging from memories of how to do things (ride a bike, tie our shoes) to memories of things that happened to us (however incomplete those memories are) to memories of factual information (Where is the bathroom? What is the capitol of Mali?).

Then Sky wrote:

As the attacks on our intellects and memory continue, we feared changing into people neither we nor our loved ones would value spending time with.  What is left for us if the glue of memory no longer holds our selves together?

As time went on, Sky gradually lost the ability— the memory — of how to do many things. What clothes to wear. How to button buttons or zip zippers. How to read. How to get into bed. How to pull up the covers.

Did he still know his Self?

Sky spent his last year in a memory care facility. He walked the corridors, interacting with other residents and the staff, singing songs, making jokes. Sky was one of those people that had a song lyric for every occasion. Me? I can’t remember song lyrics, never mind who starred in what movie.

When he was dying, he was still singing, and he seemed happy. He told me I was beautiful, and he told me the end was near.

He may not have remembered his Self, but I sure did. It was all there, in its blazing glory.

Is it only memory that is the glue that holds our selves together?

I think there is a fourth kind of memory — emotional memory. We all have negative emotional memories, but we all have positive emotional memories as well.

I was so, so grateful for the nurse’s aide who soothed me, scared and in pain, as I waited in a cold, stark ER. I can still feel her love and care fifty years later.

And when I remember Sky these days, a year after his death, of course I remember all the things we did together.  But mostly I remember the love we shared.

And what could be more important?

What about you? What memories are important for you to remember? Are they factual? Emotional? How would it feel to not remember?

In April of 2019, I led a youth and adult delegation from the local congregation I serve on a service-learning trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We engaged in a year-long series of learning sessions about Native American history, with an emphasis on the history, spirituality, teachings, and practices of the Lakota people.

Our time at Pine Ridge began with a tour of important sites on the reservation. I wrote this after returning from Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre of nearly 300 Lakota people by the United States Army. I was reminded then that our interdependence transcends not only place but also time—and that in order to make a better future we must learn about and atone for the sins of the past.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

(Pine Ridge Reservation, 4.14.19)

How do you prepare
to visit the site of genocide?
Where the soil has been stained
with the blood of innocents?

If you’re Jewish, perhaps
you find a small, smooth stone
and carry it reverently
to place on the grave of
Lost Bird, infant survivor,
kidnapped and sold and displayed
like a trophy.
We remember you, you might say.

I took a walk with friends
up a steep, snowy hill
to pray,
to see the sun set,
to feel close to the Earth.
Along the muddy path
the meadowlarks trilled and chirped
from their hidden nests
amidst the dry grass
blessing the journey
with their song.

At Wounded Knee, we listened.
First to an oral history of a people who survive, told
with sage burning for purification,
eyes closed in memory of
the inherited trauma of generations.

And then,
after the stories,
to the meadowlarks.
The lost birds singing
through time
across borders
announcing the holiness
of the ground on which we stood.

Rev. Dr. Michael Tino preached this Sermon on December 5, 2021 in the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s Online Sanctuary

Our Universalist ancestors believed that a powerful, radical love awaited them at death, a love so powerful as to be able to cleanse them of even their most vile sins, a love so radical as to be freely available to all. In the days when John Murray ran aground on a sandbar on the coast of New Jersey, it was a wild and heretical theology, this stuff of Universal salvation.

Over the ensuing two hundred and fifty-one years, a theology that holds that all people will ultimately be saved, a theology that rejects the eternal damnation of hell in favor of a reconciliation with a greater love, that theology is not so wild anymore. It is barely even heretical in some corners.

And yet, since Thomas Potter convinced John Murray to preach Universalism  in his little chapel, our faith has struggled with the question of what Universalism calls us to in this life, before we die, right here. After all, if we’re all going to be saved anyway, why bother doing anything in this life? Why even bother being good?

Through the generations, our Universalist ancestors came up with decent responses to these questions. And today I want to call us to an answer that Clarence Skinner gave us some 80 years ago.

I don’t always agree with Clarence Skinner, 20th century Universalist theologian. For starters, his history of embracing eugenics is more than a little problematic. 

But in particular, I think he led us astray by claiming that big-U Universalism was little-u universal—that we uniquely had a religion for all people and should strive to make it so. That’s modernist, colonizer talk right there, that little-u universal religion stuff. It asks us to point to the existence of a truth that is equally valid for all people, and to claim as that truth a theology of white Europeans and Americans. I don’t believe such a truth exists, much less that white folks would hold it, so I don’t do little-u universal religion.

But when Skinner asked the question “What does Universalism demand of us in this life?” he got to some things I find worthy of holding up. 

Universalism, he insisted, call on us to fight the perpetuation of racism. In his 1945 work “A Religion for Greatness,” he wrote that racism is based in selfishness, superstition, and distortion. “If we ‘see life steadily and see it whole,’” he wrote, “we can appreciate all the parts. the part becomes misunderstood only when we see it without relationships, as an end in itself.” Each race, each culture, each difference in humanity, he wrote “has its own genius and each may contribute to a life that is ‘rounded, divine, [and] complete.’”

I believe it is our call to once again make our faith a radical, prophetic, challenge to the way things are. It is time to reclaim our place as the wild heretics pushing society forward, pushing theology forward, pushing humanity forward. It is time to re-think the powerful love our ancestors believed awaited them when they died as a powerful love available to us in the present, while we live.

I believe it’s time to re-think our theology of Universal salvation as a theology of universal liberation, right here.

I believe it’s time for Universalists to claim the radical, powerful love that our ancestors once attributed to God as a possibility of humanity.

Not as an automatic of humanity—we all know that real evil exists in our world, and that systems created by humans perpetuate evil daily—but as a possibility. Which makes our call, as Universalists, making it happen.

In 1915, ten years into his ministry and two decades before he became a professor at Tufts, Clarence Skinner published “The Social Implications of Universalism.” Here’s some of the non-problematic part of what he wrote:

“Universalism was born out of the new humanity; it is the gospel of the new heaven and the new earth. It throbs with hope. It was part of the great world movement to reinterpret life in terms of a regenerated, buoyant, self assertive human nature. Universalism believes in the world and in its potential goodness. It repudiates the gloomy and disastrous outlook of the old anti-social theology. It is not frantically searching for an escape from life.”

He continues, “Only those theologies which frankly and persistently align themselves with the world, and openly champion its potential goodness, can logically enter the great reformation of the twentieth century. They alone believe that salvation comes in, by and through a saved world. This is social salvation. All others believe that salvation comes by escaping from a world which is inherently unsavable. That is the individualistic, anti-social, mediæval faith. Goethe once said that the ideal is not an escape from reality but a completion of it. The Universalist conception of religion is not that of an escape from reality, but that of the harmonious and spiritual development of all the elements of real life.”

How do we persistently align ourselves with the world? How do we openly champion the potential goodness in our midst? What is our call? It is the collective liberation of all of humanity.

And not just the spiritual liberation of all of humanity, but the physical and emotional liberation of humanity as well. These things cannot be separated.

As long as we are not naming the white supremacy culture in our midst and openly, explicitly, constantly working to dismantle it, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

As long as listening to the voices of those who have experienced marginalization and naming the ways in which racism is systematized in our society are somehow controversial things to do, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

As long as violent, extractive capitalist systems are allowed to make policy—to block action on climate change, to enact colonial foreign policies, to abrogate the bodily autonomy of people with uteruses, to let this deadly virus run rampant in communities of color and schools because we insist that certain adult bodies are needed to show up for work, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity. These evils exist because someone is making money off them, and their money is power in a society that falls short of the radical love that is possible in this world.

And as long as our siblings are locked behind bars, as long as their bodies are fuel for the fire of our prison-industrial system, as long as we insist that punishment by dehumanization is a necessary response to breaking laws, as long as our nation’s constitution allows a loophole in our abolition of slavery for incarcerated people, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

And let’s make no mistake—the systems of injustice that I’m talking about today, these systems are using the very beings—the bodies and the spirits—of black people, indigenous people, people of color, of poor people, of disabled people, of queer people, of women and transgender people, as fuel for the creation of wealth for a very small number of folks.  

Let me repeat that—the very bodies of those who are marginalized in so many ways around the world are being used as fuel. Our systems dehumanize people and then turn them into commodities to be used.

As surely as the fires of hell that John Murray rejected burned, human systems of evil burn. 

And so it is our call as Universalists to reject that fire consuming our siblings.

It is our call as Universalists to amplify the radical, powerful love that we know humanity is capable of.

It is our call as Universalists to work for the liberation of all of humanity—for the spiritual emancipation that Clarence Skinner wrote of in 1915 as well as the physical emancipation so desperately needed in 2021.

“Light the fuse,” Skinner wrote, “and the fire will reach the bomb.” It is time to set off a love bomb on our world. It is time to act like we are worthy of the God of John Murray and Hosea Ballou, the God of Olympia Brown and Joseph Jordan, the God of Gloster Dalton and Amy Scott. Like we are worthy to call ourselves inheritors of a faith in which all are saved, in which all are free, in which all are loved.

It is time for us to practice radical, powerful, life-saving love. Liberation and salvation. Right here. Right now. Over and over again.

About a decade ago, my husband and I traded in our old cell phones for iPhones, a move that heralded a subtle but profound change in our lives.

You see, wherever we go, we have instant access to the internet in our pockets. With Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database and other sites at our fingertips at all times, most questions that come up in conversation can be answered in a matter of minutes. Our shorthand for this phenomenon is “no mysteries.”

There are many fewer mysteries in our lives since this technology attached itself to our hips. And that’s not always a good thing.

You see, I love mystery.

I love being surrounded by the unknown and the unknowable.

I love living in a universe whose known parts are dwarfed by the immensity and vastness of those parts yet to be discovered.

I love being a human whose knowledge is just deep enough to reveal all of the things I do not know and never will.

As a child, I devoured mystery books by the dozens, graduating quickly from The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and beyond. I was invariably upset at the end when everything was tied together neatly.

What makes a good novel, I guess, isn’t the stuff of real life, in which the right answers are, more often than not, never known. I’m pretty sure there’s not a single book in which Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple gathered people together at the end and pronounced “I haven’t the foggiest idea who did it.”

Now that would be a mystery. And I’d love it.

I knew I had found the right college for me when the essay I was asked to write was to ponder “a question with no provable answer.” I should have re-examined my intended major, though, when I wrote my es say on belief in God—it would have saved me lots of time wandering in the desert of cell biology.

I became a scientist not because I thought it would be a way to find answers, but because it was a field based on questions.

I loved asking questions, probing their depths, removing successive layers of ignorance to reveal deeper and more numerous questions at every turn.

PHOTO BY AARON BURDEN ON UNSPLASH

I loved the mysteries of science. I loved making guesses at the unprovable, amassing evidence for the unseeable, moving deeper into the unthinkable, and asking more questions than I ever answered.

I loved contributing to the mystery of the universe.

Ultimately, the mysteries of science weren’t enough for me, though. I moved on to being part of a greater mystery, a greater question: What is the purpose of our existence?

I know that there will never be an answer to that question that satisfies me. Rather than turning me off from the pursuit, though, it ignites my love, my passion, and my drive.  I am energized and fed by the pursuit of unprovable knowledge—I am inspired to pay closer attention to all that I experience, lest I miss a clue, a path to the ultimate or an experience of the true.

I love mystery, and I love thinking that there is an unknowable love that surrounds us all—a love that can be sensed, but whose source remains beyond our comprehension.

It is this mysterious love that drives my ministry and asks me to seek connections with all the beings with whom I share this universe.

In their 1991 song “Mysterious Ways,” the group U2 sang of love that came from an unknown and unknowable source. Their song has the added bonus for me of mysterious meaning: people have debated for almost 30 years whether the song is about love between two humans or the love of God, referred to in the feminine. The band members aren’t saying. Good for them.

In that song, they sing:

One day you’ll look back,
and you’ll see
Where you were held now by
this love.
While you could stand there,
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling.

That mysterious love holds us now—and yet we have no idea where it comes from. One day, it might be clear, but for now, just go with it. Just feel it, just kneel before it and make yourself humble in its presence. Wherever it comes from, whatever it means, whoever or whatever is its ultimate source—just let the love surround you.

It’s all right, they conclude, she moves in mysterious ways.

WTF?!?! Those three letters and what they mean seem to come to mind and sometimes roll off my tongue with more regularity these days. Honestly, there was a time in my life when I would never have admitted that, especially as a clergy person. There’s a spoken and unspoken expectation that those of us who are ministers will be more put together, more pious than others. We definitely shouldn’t use four-letter words that aren’t “love.”

I get it. People want and expect their spiritual leaders to have a certain level of control. The work we do is sacred, and I am by no means trying to evade the responsibility of what it means to journey with others through the highs and lows of life. However, sometimes all you’ve got in you, no matter who you are, is, “WTF?!” COVID-19 has been one of the greatest WTFs as of late, but so is the presence of ableism, racism, sexism, and so many other isms present in our world today.  W…T…F…? It’s 2021! When will we get beyond where we have been and where it feels we still are in so many instances?

Some may choose not to use certain words or language to express their frustrations or dismay. But, again, I get it. Eloquent articulations come easier to some than others. In any case, I want to convey more than anything the collective need for lament. We lament the loss of loved ones and friends, the loss of work and provision, the loss of community, the loss of *a sense of* balance. Loss. The weight of it all is tough to bear. And so, I am; we are all seemingly screaming, “WTF?!”

I said earlier that the only four-letter word ministers should use is love. But, unfortunately, the English language (my native tongue) and its conventions make this an impossibility. To adequately convey a thought using English, one would need to string together a collection of words that are maybe four letters or more, and perhaps even less. For example, the words that comprise the fullness of WTF are 4, 3, and 4.

Now, some might critique my message as being crass or irreverent. I’m not trying to be. What if we experienced WTF as an invitation to create and hold space for our collective lament at this moment? Space to cry, space to yell, space to pause and ponder. A space that is absent the policing of language and the angst of respectability? One open to the lament of our hearts? Over the last eighteen or so months, WTF has become my most honest prayer. It is a lament and a statement that seeks to make meaning out of what has been confounding.

May we all experience the kind of liberation that frees us to lament those things that weigh heavy on us, with whatever words we choose. May we be reminded that we are held together by a word that is just four letters long yet is so much bigger than that, LOVE.

REV. DR. MICHAEL TINO 
Lead Ministry Team, Church of the Larger Fellowship

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

—Taoist philosopher, Lao-Tse, sixth  century BCE

PHOTO BY JUNE WONG ON UNSPLASH

Philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have pondered the roots of peace, and have come to the conclusion that peace between and among people is not possible without smaller bits of peace, especially peace within oneself. “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me,” the popular song goes.

Peace within oneself is the challenge of centering: How do we center ourselves? How do we go within and cultivate peace?

Many people turn to spiritual practices to do this. Spiritual practices are regular things that we do that connect us with something greater than ourselves, and there is not one right way for everyone to engage in them. We each need to figure out what it is that gives us that feeling of inner peace, of centering.

But the trick to spiritual practice is doing it regularly, and if we’re already overwhelmed by the world or our circumstances, one more thing to add to our day is just one more thing to knock us off of our center, one more thing to cause anxiety instead of cultivating peace.

I have begun to think about this differently.

Instead of carving out twenty minutes to sit in meditation, or an hour to walk a labyrinth every day, I find moments of spiritual centering throughout the day.

In giving advice to people in caring professions about cultivating peace and centering themselves, psychologist Ashley Davis Bush writes about “micro-practices,” one-moment-long glimpses of peace and mindfulness. Bush encourages people to fit them in throughout the day—in the pauses and cracks around other things, with no pressure or timeline or necessary outcome.

Take a breath. Notice how the air moves in and out of your body. Just one long, slow, deliberate breath.

Drink a glass of water. Feel it fill your body and think about how you will absorb that water.

Take just a moment and visualize in your mind something that makes you feel happy, or calm, or connected, or grounded. Choose an image and come back to it­—just for a few seconds—throughout the day.

Choose a few words to guide you, and repeat them in your mind every now and then, whenever you’re feeling unmoored. “I am grounded,” perhaps, or “I am loved.”

Spend a moment acknowledging the difficulties in your life right now. They are real. You are real. Your pain is real, too, but it does not own you.

Find a way—a small way—every day to connect to another person. Write a letter to your pen pal. Smile at a friend, or if it’s safe to do so, a stranger. Help someone out. Cultivate the knowledge that you are not alone in this world.

Think of something you’re thankful for. Take just a moment to feel gratitude.

Say something kind to yourself.

These practices don’t need to be long—ideally they’re just a minute, a moment, a breath. And they are all ways to connect to our center, to cultivate peace within our hearts, and to connect to something beyond our individual being.

Let peace begin with you. Let peace begin in your heart. Find your center, a little bit at a time.

I love the phrase “praying with our feet.” It often comes to mind for me in protests at the Texas Capitol, when I wait in line to vote, and perhaps most especially every Friday, when I lead my Zumba class, where we pray with our arms, our hips, our everything.

“What is your intention for this hour?” I ask folks Zooming in from around the world. “What are you dancing for today?”

On a recent morning, the answers included, “my 18-year wedding anniversary!” “another job interview,” and “seeing my grandkids again for the first time in COVID.” A woman in College Station, Texas, showed us her wrapped wrist and asked for healing prayers after surgery. A dancer in Canada requested the song “Best Friend” by Saweetie and shared sadness about a friend in hospice care.

We took deep breaths and held each other across the miles. Then we danced — for joy, hope, and grief. For the chance to move together as one, even in a time of isolation.

Happiness ain’t something you sit back and you wait for
Feels so good to dance again”
—Selena Gomez, “Dance Again

Since finding dance nine years ago, it has become my joy practice and a form of embodied prayer. I choose music and choreography to reflect Unitarian Universalist principles like interconnectedness, equity, and acceptance. Moving to the music of Lizzo, Kesha, and Gente de Zona, I am praying to the Spirit of Life — to summon the energy for another day of pandemic parenting, to feel in my hips and heart that I am enough. We are all enough.

Uruguayan journalist and novelist Eduardo Galeano wrote, “The church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

As UUs, I hope we can bring church and science into the body’s celebration (and do our best to ignore advertising altogether).

Lately, my own body and spirit have been telling me to slow down. I am feeling the impact of pandemic trauma, plus the natural effects of aging (and a decade of jumping up and down to Pitbull songs).

Thankfully, Zumba can be medium-impact or low, on your feet or in a chair or swimming pool. Sometimes just listening to the playlist is enough. When I forego a high-impact jump in favor of a grounded shimmy to protect my back, I am not failing my class — whose members range in age from elementary school to their 80s — but honoring the sacredness of all bodies.

PHOTO BY DYLAN NOLTE ON UNSPLASH

Similarly, when my brain is tired and I forget a move, I try not to apologize (as I have been conditioned to do for the most human of mistakes). Even though I feel embarrassed on the inside, I throw my head back and laugh, improvising through the moments Richard Simmons used to call “accidental solos.” I remember that we are called to let go of perfectionism — a piece of dismantling white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions. I remind myself that we need these moments, to dance through discomfort and even embrace mistakes, having faith we will learn from them.

I remember the wise words of Cynthia Winton-Henry in her book, Dance – The Sacred Art: “As much as you might want a ‘perfect’ spot in which to dance, it is really the other way around: You make the space around you holy when you dance.”