Minister’s Musings
Minister Musing by Rev. Julie Lombard
In January we celebrate GRACE as our worship theme and just when we need it most. Winter is cold and dark enough without the political chill in the air we’ve been feeling. Ernest Hemingway said, “Courage is grace under pressure.” Are you feeling the pressure? It’s time to be courageous!
It is New Year’s, time to make a resolution. My resolution is to shine brighter than ever because our wider world needs that more than ever before. What’s your resolution? Will we know it when we see it? How might you know that I am shining brighter than ever before?
A long time ago, I received a message from the UUA President, Peter Morales. He said, “These are tough times. We are living in the midst of historic cultural turmoil. Long festering resentments are being unleashed, posing immediate threats to the most marginalized in our society and presenting long term danger to our natural environment.” He knows that this leaves people feeling anxious. President Morales thanks us for our courage, our perseverance, and our faithfulness. He believes we must prepare to provide sanctuary and resist to a broken world.
But how? Morales believed it starts with us providing sanctuary and offering safe places for reflection and healing for any and all those coming to seek spiritual community. Most importantly, we must provide sanctuary to those most vulnerable: the migrants who face mass deportation and our Muslims friends or the Trans teen in the middle of a locker room debate. We must also prepare to resist human rights violations in active ways. It’s time to make it harder to deport, register, discriminate, and despoil.
Faithful folks like parishioners here have long been advocates for marriage equality, racial justice, civil rights, immigration reform, and environmental justice, so fighting for human rights is in our theological blood. Now more than ever, we will have to respond to acts of hatred. This is grace in action!
President Morales was reminding us that we are not alone. We need one another because together we are stronger, together we inspire one another, and together we can do this! Love will guide us. Hope will sustain us. Grace shall prevail.
Peace, Rev. Julie