Dear First Parishers,
February was a month! Especially the last couple of weeks, where the wintry, icy weather kept us out of the building for worship for two Sundays in a row. I was so very glad that we could get back in the sanctuary this past Sunday. Not that March won’t bring its own share of storms, but we are inching closer to spring.
We have also been facing political storms that do not look to let up anytime soon. Despite my best intention to not get too caught up in the “laser pointer” distraction game of the current administration, it is easier said than done. It is hard to
stay grounded when everything around us is constantly being uprooted. And yet, that is the most faithful response we can offer: to remain steady in our commitments to our Unitarian Universalist values and to support one another, this community and our neighbors by living into them as best we can. I know I say this every week, but we are each other’s sanctuary for this work. We create and sustain it together as we gather to worship and recommit to our covenant week after week, month after month, year after year.
Our Soul Matters Worship Theme for March is “Living Love Through the Practice of Trust.” Reading through the material for this month, I came across this quote by Brian Doyle: “All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference. Humility does not mean self-abnegation, lassitude, detachment; it’s more a calm recognition that you must trust in that which does not make sense, that which is unreasonable, illogical, silly, ridiculous, crazy by the measure of most of our culture. You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow. That trying to be an honest and tender parent will echo for centuries through your tribe. That doing your chosen work with creativity and diligence will shiver people far beyond your ken. That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling. And you must do all of this with the certain knowledge that you will never get proper credit for it, and in fact the vast majority of things you do right will go utterly unremarked… This is what I know: that the small is huge, that the tiny is vast.”
The last couple of lines: “That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling…that the small is huge, that the tiny vast”— that is the work of trust, of faith. While this is nothing new, it is more urgent now, because it is harder to do when despair and anxiety threaten to overwhelm. Honesty, tenderness, attentiveness, generosity—these are all forms of Love. And while these things may not be popular right now, they are not wrong. As William Stafford said in his poem, The Way It Is:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
In faith,
Rev. Ellen
