Dear UU Schenectady~
When we were considering monthly themes for the year way back in August, “Something Larger Than Ourselves” seemed like a fitting theme for June, when some of us will be engaging with the larger denomination at the UUA General Assembly, and when many families have a shift in schedules, and devote more time to being outside.
We had no idea that 2020 would bring such different realities such that we would experience being interconnected via a global pandemic while also being physically distanced. It has been 90 days since we cancelled all in-person and on-site gatherings.
We did not know that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people all over the world would rise together to declare Black Lives Matter and decry brutality and militarization of police. Finally.
We did not know that these two huge things would happen at the same time requiring deep ethical grappling (how do we best be present and do our work and serve this congregation and answer the call of Love for the Movement for Black Lives, when we are supposed to stay away from each other because of a deadly disease), explicit participation (clergy have been invited to show up at these demonstrations to be allies and accomplices to emerging coalitions of justice and overhauling systems of oppression and we are showing up whenever we can), all while being present with our own utter exhaustion, profound heartbreak, and the vulnerable tiny emergence of signs of change.
We had no idea how much we, as your ministers, would need to tap into our own sources of strength, hope, and courage so that we might find something to hold onto; how much we would need to rely on spiritual practices that offer sustenance through Something Larger than Ourselves. One of those practices is reading and writing poetry. Today, we share a poem by our friend and colleague, Rev. Theresa I. Soto. They kindly gave permission for us to share it.
To be free, you must embrace
the breadth of your own existence
without apology, even if they try to take
it from you. You must know, not that you
can do whatever you want; you are not
a kudzu vine, eating entire hillsides for
the purpose of feeding your own lush life. You
must know instead, that inside you are entire
Universes-milky blue, magenta, and gold-
expanding. But to actually be free, you must
know and you must fight for the entire
Universes inside of everyone else.
Being free is not a license, but
A promise.
With commitment, and in faith~
Rev. Lynn & Rev. Wendy