Thus do we covenant with one another…

What promises have we made as individuals, as a congregation, as a state, as a nation? What promises have been broken? What needs repair? “The human being…,” as Jewish theologian Martin Buber says, “is the promise-making, promise-keeping, promise-breaking, promise-renewing creature.”

There is much to celebrate and much to repair or re-imagine to strengthen our nation and our democracy. As we acknowledge Diwali and Veterans Day, we still need to make sure all the votes are certified and that there are appropriate transitions of power. As a nation, we still need to do the work to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” as named in the U.S. Constitution.

Meanwhile, many of us also have things to tend to locally: the day-to-day of our lives, caring for friends and family, helping with the Garden Clean-up at UUSS on Saturday, spiritual practices that help sustain and nurture our lives, and remembering to find gratitude in the chaos or other challenges to name but a few.

It is important to celebrate. It is important to tend to our lives and our communities. It is important to live in the complexities and nuance of our pluralism when we don’t all believe alike or think alike or love alike. It takes courage to be there in the uncertainty or to listen when someone’s life experience is so vastly different from our own. May we harness our curiosity, our courage, and our willingness to forge a better nation for all beings with the little day-to-day activities and the larger quests for liberty and peace and do so, with Love at the center.

With hope,

Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy