Dear Members and Friends,
Today is Earth Day. Yesterday the world lost a most powerful voice for the earth and for the poor. Pope Francis called on people of faith to address climate change especially in relation to how it impacts poor people.
One of the four blessings I include in a Child Dedication is a blessing with earth—with the prayer that the children will come to themselves as pieces of the earth conscious of itself. I believe Pope Francis became one such person. Today as I offer a reflection on “right relationship,” it is important to consider what it means to be in right relationship with the earth. And so today’s readings are specifically to encourage this.
It is also important to reflect on being in good relationship with our communities, including our spiritual community here at UU Westport.
I’m grateful for our Right Relations Team who will lead this Sunday’s service, “What Do We Promise One Another?” As the Right Relations Team, they provide our community practices for being in right relationship. They currently are meeting with various teams, committees, and groups of members to draw out our shared values to discern our shared promises.
In my view, “right relationship” within a community is not about being perfect or getting everything “right.” It’s about being real and genuine with one another. It’s about showing up with integrity, with courage, and with love—even when things are messy.
At its heart, being in right relationship means recognizing that our lives are deeply connected. It means seeing the inherent worth and dignity of every person—not just in theory, but in practice.
It means:
- Listening deeply when someone is hurting.
- Speaking honestly when something is wrong.
- Making amends when we realize that we’ve caused harm.
- Holding boundaries with compassion.
- Celebrating each other’s joys and tending to each other’s pain.
These aren’t just interpersonal niceties. They’re spiritual practices. And like any spiritual practice, they take intention, humility, and persistence.
Right relationship asks us to be accountable—to ourselves, to each other, and to the communities we are part of. Not from a place of guilt or shame, but from a place of love. When leaders ask you to share your experience in a survey or to pledge, may you be grateful to do so. (If you haven’t yet, respond to the survey or make a pledge!)
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” That’s what we’re talking about here. This network of mutuality is not always comfortable. But it is sacred. It is holy.
In this faith, we do not require uniformity of belief. But we do commit to walking together—to growing together, to learning together, to stumbling and rising, over and over again, in community.
Sometimes that means facing conflict—not with avoidance or aggression, but with openness. Can we stay at the table when things get hard? Can we listen for what is beneath the surface? Can we choose love, not as a feeling, but as an action?
Our UU Principles call us to promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. That work doesn’t begin out there. It begins here—in the way we treat one another, week after week, coffee hour after coffee hour, meeting after meeting. This is sacred work.
I invite you to ask yourself:
- Where in my life is there a relationship that needs tending?
- What truth needs to be spoken?
- What forgiveness needs to be offered—or asked for?
- How can I practice being more fully present to those around me?
Being in right relationship is not a destination. It’s a path we walk. Sometimes we’ll miss a step. That’s okay. What matters is that we keep walking—together.
May we do so with grace, with humility, and with an ever-deepening commitment to love.
In Peace and Love,
Alan
Uncompahgre a.k.a. Northern Ute.
Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth Teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep in the rain.
