If you have been coming to worship these last several weeks you will have noticed that there is a new energy in our midst. With the new year have come people who have found us and our new way of doing religion, creating a place where creativity and spirituality meet.
We welcome all who find a spiritual home among us: families, elders, those of different ethnicities, gender identities, economic means, and abilities. We are not yet in the promised land but we are on our way. I believe we are in a time of tremendous transformation individually and collectively. It shows up in the way we welcome young and old into a place of energy and hope. It shows up because we are moving towards radical welcome.
Radical welcoming grew out of the progressive Christian Church and has come to embrace all those who want religion to be meaningful in a new way. Lisa Presley from the UUA puts it this way:
“When folks who have never heard about UUism find their way into our congregations, for many it’s a sudden “I’m home!” feeling. And that’s often accompanied by the question “Why didn’t anyone tell me about UUism before?” Being radically welcoming means that we understand that we are a great religious fit for many people, and that we’re not just willing to “let in” those who are “like us,” but we find ways to make sure that we welcome all people fully…This means that folks don’t have to hide parts of themselves. Whether they are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning — they are welcome here.” https://www.uua.org/midamerica/resources/new-leaders/radically-welcoming
This is the second week of our 30 Days of Love Campaign. This week we are focusing on hospitality and inclusion.
Whether you are new or have been among us for many years, let’s keep the welcome door open for all who find their way into our midst.
I leave you with this poem from Rev. Sean Parker Dennison:
To invoke Love
is to ask for a hug from a thunderstorm,
spill tea in the lap of the infinite trickster,
to make the biggest, most embarrassing mistake
of your life in front of everyone who matters.
To invoke Love
is to never know if it will come softly,
with the nuzzle of a beloved dog,
or pounce right on your chest with the strength of a lioness
protecting her cub, her pride, her homeland.
To invoke Love
is to take the risk of inviting chaos to visit the spaces
you spent so much time making tidy,
and watch as the breath of life scatters everything
you have only just folded and put away.
To invoke Love
is to allow for the possibility that your words
and actions might become so empowered
you can no longer believe in apathy,
or the self-righteous idea that nothing can change.
To invoke Love
is to give up self-deprecation, false humility, pride,
to consider yourself worthy to be made whole,
willing to encounter Love that will never
let us let each other go.
To invoke Love
is to guard against assumptions,
take care with our words and practice forgiveness,
not as ethereal ideal, but right here,
in the messy midst of our imperfect lives.
To invoke Love
is to approach each day and every person with wonder,
anticipating Love’s arrival: “Is this the moment?
Is this Love’s grant entrance?
Is this person the embodiment of Love? Am I the one?”
To invoke Love
is to play the fool, the one more concerned with loving
than with appearance or reputation,
the one ready and willing to be vulnerable,
abandoning anything that gets in Love’s way.
To invoke Love is to be ready to become Love.
Here. Now. In everything we do. Are you ready?
–Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, from Breaking and Blessing
Yours Always, Rev. John