Dear ones,

Today it is time to get to work. Today we begin our fourth week together, after celebrating our Earth's abundance in week one, grieving and reckoning with loss in week two, and reconnecting with the sources of joy and love that sustain us in week three.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls on us to confront the crisis of climate change that plagues our world and narrows the possibilities for our collective future.

Our primary challenge isn’t convincing people of its devastating impacts. It's helping people truly believe that we can win and create the profound changes necessary for a better world. As people of faith we have the responsibility and opportunity to bring forward our spiritual traditions, rituals, and practices to help people meet these times with courage.

In Denver, we talk a lot about air—mostly because there’s less of it here, up at a mile high. It’s a reality I confront during a long, exhausting ultimate frisbee game.

I think there’s value in feeling the fatigue, in really experiencing it. When I gasp for breath after chasing down a receiver or defending a pass, I feel acutely air’s vital importance. Each sprint renews my commitment to protecting this invaluable resource, for my lungs find themselves fighting for air.

Interconnectedness. A concept that unites us with one another and all that exists.
A concept that calls us to a deeper sense of ourselves.
What does it mean when our personal comfort and well-being
exists side-by-side
with environmental devastation, racial inequity, ever-increasing income gaps, persistent gender inequality, cruelty towards other species... and on and on...
...the list goes on, of all the ways in which we have separated ourselves from one another and the world around us.

What does deep spirituality feel like to you? Spirituality is impossible to define and difficult to describe.

For me, it feels like connection—connection to myself, to others around me, to the earth and all of creation. Connection to myself feels like deep peace, awareness, calm, authenticity. Connection to others feels like compassion, community, acceptance, and enduring love.

Where do you find hope?
In the people around you?
Those with whom you share a covenant, or a hope,
or a determination that evil will not have the last word?

Oh wake me!
Out from behind whatever great stone.

Stub my toe on beauty.  
Knock my shin on the hard edge of covenant.

Dear ones,

Today we begin our week-long journey to reconnect with love, earth, our community, and our neighbors in order to restore our souls for the work ahead.

We just spent a week honoring our grief over the wanton destruction of the earth and its human communities, but we cannot stay in despair. Being truly honest about the crisis we are facing returns us to our deep love for this world, for love is at the root of our sense of loss.

For the past two years I have been living in Fresno, California, blessed to be sheltering at the foot of three national parks. Giant Sequoias are but one species in the glorious landscapes of Yosemite, King’s Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks, yet their towering forms and ecosystem sensitivity make them a larger than life presence in our area. This week I am reminded that these iconic trees grow from the tiniest of seeds, and that their very existence is dependent on the transformation of fire.

Living on this planet at this time of crisis and change, it’s hard not feel a sense of pain and grief. But how often do we open ourselves up to this painful reality, to sit with those difficult emotions, instead of turning away and going back to business as usual?