Dear Church,

May this find you healthy and well!

It was so fun to hear last Sunday in worship the December rituals that are important to you. Much overlap, and many unique rituals, too. I hope they continue to ground and center you these busy days and long nights.  This Sunday we turn our attention toward amazement and awe.

Our December theme asks us… how does a weary world rejoice?

And we respond, this week – We allow ourselves to be amazed. 

Amazement is fertile ground for our reflection. To be amazed can mean we are overwhelmed by wonder, in the positive sense. Speechless in the face of beauty or mystery. And at its root can also mean to be deeply perplexed… to face that which is incomprehensible. Like suffering and war. To allow both is vital to our participation in the fullness of this life we share.

As I prepare to join with colleagues and other people of faith in protest of the selling of semi-automatic firearms in our community this afternoon–on this 11th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting–I am allowing myself to be amazed. Amazed that you can buy an AR-15 at the store. Amazed gun violence is not slowing down. AND… amazed at the people willing to bundle up and protest in the middle of December… amazed at the power of resistance, both here in our community, in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel, and across the world… amazed that I still, somehow, believe in the core of my being that Love, not hate, will have the final word.

And that brings me, though I am weary, ever so slightly closer to rejoicing.

For which I am grateful.

 

See you in church, dear ones.

 

In faith,

Rev. Tara