Members and friends,
I hope you’ve had a moment this week to soak in the October beauty – the colors and smell and crisp air and afternoon golden hour light. I need this reminder that even when the world breaks my heart, and it does on an almost daily basis, there is so much beauty. In the trees and critters and sky… and even in human community.
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the devastating October 7th Hamas attack on Israel which launched the absolutely horrifying past three years of violence in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli government. There are so many true things… that this attack was a terror… that Israel’s response continues to be a terror… that the United States is complacent… that neighboring countries are suffering… that antisemitism in our country is out of control… that it feels almost impossible to talk about these issues without alienating someone or being silenced or cancelled.
There is disagreement even amongst my local multifaith colleague group–a group that has invested in deep relationships of respect and trust–about how to talk about this issue. Some of us use the word genocide. Others do not. We are struggling to know how to talk with one another about it without hurting each other. Because there is so much pain. And there is so much fear about causing more pain.
I wonder if you have those topics or times in your life, too, where something feels so horrifying or divisive or painful that the risk of speaking about it and making a mistake or doing it imperfectly and accidentally making it worse makes showing up to the conversation or the table too difficult to bear. Maybe it’s a divisive subject… or even just knowing what to write in a card to someone who just experienced a loss. Sometimes there are no words…
And yet Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to hold love at the center of all we do, and to share our presence with one another. We affirm that we need one another to be whole. So we are challenged to show up, to listen, and sometimes even to speak… even when we don’t know what to say. This is the work of bearing witness.
This Sunday, I look forward to leading worship alongside your Pastoral Care Team. We will explore what it means to bear witness and how each of us is called in different ways to this spiritual task. I’ll share some reflections from my experience this summer serving as a street chaplain in Biddeford after the ICE murder of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, and what I learned about the power of presence. And you’ll hear from others about how they understand the sacred work of receiving one another’s sorrows and joys. It will be a meaningful morning for reflection and connection, and I hope we’ll see you there.
If you’d like to connect in community in an equally meaningful but more lighthearted way, join us for an afternoon of fellowship and pumpkin carving on Saturday. We’ll gather–adults and kids– on the A2U2 playground at 1pm in clothes we don’t mind getting dirty. And we’ll immerse ourselves in mess and good conversation. Register here. After Sunday’s service I’ll join our Zoom Sanctuary for virtual coffee hour while our social justice team leads Get Out the Vote letter writing for anyone who wants to join. It will be good to be together.
In faith,
Rev. Tara