Dear First Parishers,
This past week has felt heavier in a month already weighed down by grief. News from Minneapolis, including the death of another peaceful protestor over the weekend, by overzealous armed andmasked federal agents. A round of winter weather. A country that seems caught in cycles of outrage, heartbreak, and fear, and in danger of disintegrating all together. Many of us are carrying an underlying sense of overwhelm, an exhaustion that comes not just from one event, but from the steady accumulation of them.
I believe it is accurate to say that we are living in traumatic times, Trauma is a word we hear often, and it matters that we understand its meaning. According to the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology, trauma is “…any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning. Traumatic events include those caused by human behavior (and) nature…and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place.”
I think that describes the current climate in our country pretty well. We witness trauma through our screens, in our conversations, and sometimes in our own bodies. Even when events are far away, our nervous systems don’t always know the difference. The result can be numbness, anxiety, irritability, or a quiet sense of despair. If you’ve been feeling any of that, you are not failing. You are just being human.
As Unitarian Universalists, we tend to be problem-solvers, fix-it now or at least do something kinds of people. In the spirit of our Universalist ancestors we are not waiting on heaven but working to bring something akin to it to life on this earth in this time: “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer. To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine.” (L. Griswold Williams) Our ancestors knew that service is not only what we do, but how we remain grounded enough to do it.
In times like these, the question is not “How do we fix everything?” The question is “How do we stay human?” How do we remain compassionate without breaking, engaged without burning out, hopeful without denying reality?
Which brings me to the importance of our beloved Unitarian Universalist faith community. We can help one another stay human. And we can do our darndest to bring that out into our larger community. This is more than political or social engagement, although it may call some of us to this kind of work. It is theological—wrestling with what is sacred and holy across time and worthy of our deepest commitment and responding from the place of the soul. That kind of soul work is practiced here—in worship, in faith formation small groups, in conversation, in care for one another, and in the slow, imperfect work of embodying love in the world.
In faith,
Rev. Ellen