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Many Unitarian Universalists participate in lively online discussion of a wide variety of topics. Keep up with the conversation: Read UU World’s Editors’ Blog, where you’ll find links to the best commentary about Unitarian Universalism each week (uuworld.org/blog).
The poetry of pain
In the great tradition of lament, East of Midnight’s Kim Hampton cries out on behalf of Hagar’s children:
“YOU said that YOU would make a great nation of my Ishmael.
Are YOU there God?
Isaac’s nation is killing us.
Are YOU there God?
I’m tired of looking at the death of my child.
Are YOU there God?
Are YOU there?” (eastofmidnight.wordpress.com, July 7)
The Rev. Lynn Ungar shared a new poem, “Mathematics,” on Facebook:
“There is an addition of loss,
grief upon grief upon grief.
There is a multiplication of loss,
ripples of sorrow expanding
through families, friends, communities, nations.
Division is a choice.
Division is a choice.” (facebook.com/lynn.ungar, July 8)
Also posting on Facebook, the Rev. Audette Fulbright offered a prayer for hopelessness:
“If you need to fall apart, then do—
for Life will hold you in that, too
will teach you how to dessicate and blow away
and then will call you back from the four corners of the earth
and will renew you with the water
of the tears of others
who
like you
weep for all that is lost.” (facebook.com/revaudette.fulbright, July 7)
Revolution is messy
The Rev. Cecilia Kingman shared on Facebook that as a young person she felt she was missing out by not living during a “large historical moment.” As an adult, however, she has learned that “the Revolution isn’t all that glamorous or romantic, is painful and awful, and we still have to go to work and make dinner and bathe small children while people we love get arrested, get killed, succumb to despair, while it seems the world burns.” (facebook.com/ceciliakingman, July 14)
Writing on Facebook, the Rev. Evin Carvill-Ziemer urged us not to be discouraged by an imperfect process of change, but rather to keep working: “Politics and social change are not a Monday morning quarterback sports. They’re messy, muddy, sometimes brutal and bloody sports where the decision in the moment may not be the best one from the aerial view, but the only way to get to be part of the decision is to be there in the scrum.” (facebook.com/ecziemer, July 26)
The politics of Trump
Justin Almeida of What’s My Age Again wrote an open letter to friends and family who support Donald Trump: “This now involves people; specifically people like me. This is a deep wound you’ve created and most likely will deny. And I don’t want to believe it either. . . . But you’ve proven to me that you hate me, you hate people who are like me, and that you want us beaten, arrested, deported, and dead. So I’m writing you this letter. Please don’t do this.” (justinalmeida.com, August 10)
The Rev. Erika Hewitt reported on Facebook about her experience at a Trump rally in Maine: “And here’s the thing hardest to admit: I got inside their heads a little. . . . That’s why I went inside the rally: to be able to see all of this instead of mock the guy; to try to understand instead of dismissing or vilifying Trump voters as ‘crazy.’ If we sit back and throw around insults, aren’t we doing the very thing we criticize in them?” (facebook.com/erika.hewitt, August 5)
May you be held in love
Inspired by the festival of Mabon, and by an Indigo Girls song, the Rev. Erica Baron of Nature’s Path explored the paradoxes of a quenched thirst, and an unquenchable thirst: “May your body and your spirit always have what they need. When you are in need of refreshment, or new life, may the waters be available to you. May you never know thirst unto death, in your body or in your soul. May you never thirst. And may your body and your spirit always thirst enough to stay alive. May you know the dissatisfaction with things as they are that leads to work for justice. . . . May you never thirst too deeply, but may your thirst never be entirely quenched.” (patheos.com/blogs/naturespath, September 2)
The Rev. Amy Shaw of Chalice Fire has never seen a burning bush, but she believes in prayer. “I believe in the awesome, world changing, sometimes earth shattering power of falling to my knees and sharing my joy and my pain with the God of my heart. I believe in the utter sweetness of humbly coming to something greater than I could imagine, knowing that no matter what I have done, I am still loved and welcome there.” (chalicefire1.blogspot.com, August 14)
The Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein wrote on Facebook that she had nearly cried over spilled cat food—and then remembered Italians trapped after an earthquake: “It’s not that our petty sufferings are not allowed. They are, and being human is hard. It is more that we are always invited to be fully alive, which often opens our heart to something else than our own discomfort or unhappiness.
“Be well. Be as well as you can. If you are not well, may you be held in the love of God and the prayers of others who are fortunate enough today to have some strength left over for someone else. And so we go on, and you had better believe that we are going on together. There actually isn’t a choice.” (facebook.com/PeaceBang, August 24)