Dear friends,

Before the snow and clouds this week, we had sunshine. And even with the snow, the light has shifted and it feels as though Earth is waking back up. My home gets South-facing light streaming through the windows in the morning, and earlier in the week I found both dogs (one is ours, the other lives with us in the winter – pictured above) and one of the cats snuggled together on the guest bed basking in a thin strip of sunlight. It was both adorable and comically desperate. Three bodies on one sliver of a full-sized bed! I added a fourth body, my own, for a few minutes of blissful albeit crowded sunbathing. We are all desperate for a little light, aren’t we? 

 

This Saturday is Valentine’s Day, when American culture lifts up and celebrates love in the form of monogamous romantic relationships. That’s lovely for some folks! And leaves out many others. Sunday’s worship service, “Anam Cara,” will be a celebration of the love we experience through friendship. I hope it will feel like a warm hug or a moment in the sun. Friendship is a unique kind of relationship. At their best, friendships offer us ongoing opportunities to practice one of our Unitarian Universalist core values: Transformation. The late Irish poet John O’Donohue wrote about an expression of friendship known in Gaelic as anam cara, or soul friend. Relationships are hard and holy work. Sometimes so hard we might rather just move through life alone. But together we’ll remember the power of connection to transform us for the better, and celebrate the power of love in one of its many fascinating forms. 

 

Since we’re celebrating friendship, I invite you to be brave this week and invite a friend to church with you (in person or on Zoom)! Many Unitarian Universalists feel shy about sharing their congregations with their non-UU or non-religious friends in fear they will come across as evangelists. But inviting a friend to experience a community that’s meaningful to you can offer them a deeper window into your life, spark connective conversations, and enrich your relationship. Plus, selfishly, getting to meet the people who love the people I love will bring me much delight. 

 

As the challenges, heartbreaks, and puzzles of being human in this world meet us at every turn, may we return to the well of community and bask in the sliver of light that is each other’s company and love. I look forward to being with you. 

 

In faith, 

Rev. Tara