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The Beloved Community Means Everybody

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Beloved Community means everybody. This is one of the most important things to remember as we use this powerful phrase. It’s not a community defined around beloved people or for a special group. It’s a way of building community defined by the way love operates. Most of all, if anyone is excluded, it’s not a beloved community.

Beloved community means everybody. It means that we’re building a world where everyone can thrive.

This means eliminating poverty. And the cycles of greed and economic exploitation that keep us trapped in debt. It means everyone has food, housing, healthcare and all their basic needs. It means that everyone gets quality education.

This means dismantling racism and other oppressions. Racism, yes, and antisemitism and xenophobia. But also, sexism, heterosexism, and transphobia. Also, ableism, ageism, and adultism. Every system that tries to make one person more important or valuable than another.

This means ending militarization. Stopping wars and the posturing of war, stopping the control of people by threat of force, whether we’re talking about individuals or ethnic groups or countries.

Beloved community is the antithesis of what our country’s government has done in the last year. In the last year, our country has withheld food from people living in poverty, cut funding to schools, made healthcare inaccessible to millions of people, discriminated openly against transgender people, immigrants, and people of color, abducted and detained immigrants, terrorized communities, kidnapped the ruler and first lady of Venezuela, and threatened to conquer Greenland, just as a sampling.

Though we’re all in this moment, we don’t necessarily all feel or navigate it the same way. Those of us who are immigrants or transgender are facing direct attacks from our government. Black and brown people have long known this danger. Those of us who are poor, disabled, queer, women, the list is long and our time together is not, will all have our particular experiences of harm here. We’re coming from so many places. Our resistance will not all look the same.

As Rev. Ranwa Hammamy articulated in our reading, we have many ways of resisting. Some of us will be out in the streets, of course, but all of us are called to do what we can to align our lives and our values. How do we enact Beloved Community as our resistance, not just our end goal?

We watch each other’s kids. We bring food to the movement. We use the power we have for the good of our neighbors. We build community that’s worth saving.

I invite you to see this as the same movement Dr. King was part of, 60 years ago. The racial, labor, and anti-war organizing that he and his contemporaries undertook is directly connected to the struggles we face now. These evils of poverty, racism, and militarization are not new, though sometimes they feel newly distilled.

Historian and content creator Ashley the Baroness challenges us to see the tactics of ICE agents as repeating those of slave patrols, targeting people based on race, based on assumptions not evidence, terrorizing communities, brutalizing and abducting people. This isn’t new, and it isn’t un-American. It isn’t helpful to look further than our own history to understand this dynamic.

Beloved Community means everybody. Everybody has what they need to thrive. But Beloved Community means everybody, and we all have a part to play in building this world of love, justice, and peace.

This means dismantling our own assumptions, yes, of course, but I’m specifically thinking of how we actively resist the harm that our government is doing right now. And there’s a tool that was also in the civil rights movement’s toolbox: the boycott. When so much of what is killing us in this moment is greed, we fight back with our wallets. Every time you make a purchase, you make a choice, after all.

70 years ago, when Martin Luther King, Jr., was the new pastor in Montgomery, local organizers selected him to be the visible leader of a bus boycott. Remember Rosa Parks, and Claudette Colvin, and their coordinated refusal to give up their seats to white bus riders in protest of segregation and grave abuses by the bus system in Montgomery? The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 days, more than a year, of coordinating people to not ride the bus. That’s a lot of walking and bicycling, a lot of ridesharing, a lot of time that people weren’t home with their families to make that happen. People collected and distributed shoes to replace the shoes that the boycotters wore out. This coordinated action took the commitment of the whole community to support it.

It wasn’t a foregone or riskless victory. King’s house was firebombed, and he spent two weeks in jail. The same for Ralph Abernathy. Rosa Parks had to leave Montgomery–she couldn’t get work afterwards. Boycotters were attacked while walking. It took profound courage and stamina to participate in this boycott.

Side With Love’s Nicole Pressley put it this way: economic noncooperation raises the cost of repression. ICE needs the economy to function to do what they do. They need food, hotel rooms. There are ways to hit ICE and their allies in their wallets. When the executive branch won’t listen to judges, when congress won’t stop illegal action, we all need to own our economic power.

  • Avelo Air travel: Avelo Airlines had a $150 million contract with the federal government to operate deportation flights. The government was deporting these individuals without a fair hearing or due process. Consumers boycotted Avelo during the busy travel season of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they also organized actions and divestment. On January 9, Avelo announced that they were discontinuing deportation flights. This is a win. Let’s celebrate it and allow it to inspire us to further economic action.

Here are some of the boycott and divestment actions that I’m hearing about. This list is hastily assembled and non-comprehensive, but see links at the end of this post for more ideas.

  • Hilton Hotels: a Hampton Inn in Lakeville, Minnesota, canceled ICE’s reservations, and Hilton, the brand owner, canceled that location’s brand status. Hilton has also hosted ICE recruitment events. Organizers are calling for those who can cancel their reservations with Hilton brand hotels. Some organizers are even calling for people to make and cancel reservations, to flood the system and cost Hilton money as they process the reservations and cancellations.
  • AT&T Telephones: AT&T has had multimillion-dollar contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Organizers call for consumers to refuse to buy, upgrade, or renew phones or plans until AT&T stops contracting with ICE.
  • Amazon surveillance technology and data processing: Amazon isn’t the only one, but it’s one we might use on a daily basis. Amazon doesn’t just sell us objects–Amazon makes millions of dollars each year selling cloud computing services to ICE. In fact, ICE depends on Amazon to carry out its work. I know that Amazon is deeply embedded in many of our lives. To the extent that you are able, stop shopping with Amazon. This means Amazon.com, but also Audible, Ring cameras, Whole Foods, and even the Washington Post. This one is a double whammy. Getting our money out of Amazon’s economy is perhaps a drop in the bucket when Amazon has a hand in everything, but we can reinvest in smaller businesses and local economies when we stop and think about the paths that our money takes. We can build the economies we want to support by shopping with companies that more closely align with our values.
  • Prisons and weapons manufacturers. You probably don’t go out of your way to support private prisons or weapons manufacturers. Individual consumers usually don’t. But have you checked your investments recently? Do you have money invested in funds that include private prisons or weapons in their portfolio? Do you know, generally, what your money is doing in the world? Is your money being used in ways that don’t align with your values? It might be time to change that.

We have seen injustice before. But as our first hymn says, we’ve got our minds stayed on freedom. We lift up the songs of the civil rights movement today, many of which come out of the Black spirituals and gospel traditions, which reach back to Black people’s struggle for freedom from slavery. With respect for this deep tradition, we sing these words to remember that the struggle is centuries-long and rooted in the ordering of our society. So is the will to overcome.

Over 100 years ago, a mixed-race mine workers’ union sang a gospel song “We Will Overcome” at its meetings. Along the way, parts of the tune were swapped out with a spiritual you may know, “No More Auction Block for Me.” In the 1940s, striking tobacco industry workers, mostly Black women, began singing “We Will Overcome” at their meetings. The organizers at Highlander School, which has trained generations of civil rights activists, learned it from them. Pete Seeger changed it from We Will to We Shall Overcome. Dr. King heard Seeger sing the song in 1957. The song, as we know it, is deeply associated with the Highlander Center, which still trains civil rights activists, and with the labor and civil rights movements, holding and passing the hope through the generations.

We sing it as a prayer, for endurance, for justice, for kinship, for peace, for freedom

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Resources for economic resistance:

Side With Love: https://sidewithlove.org/ourstories/2026/1/13/recording-from-january-gathering

Cut Off the Spigot: https://cutoffthespigot.substack.com/

Photo by Zacqueline Baldwin on Unsplash

Meeting Our Ancestors – on December 13

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Register Here

Please join us for a challenging exploration of our present day responsibilities for family and community ancestry on:

Saturday, December 13

10:00am to 12:30pm

Social Hall – UUSA Meetinghouse

Purpose: to help members and committed friends of the UUSA explore their understanding of family legacies and present-day responsibilities for harms that might have been caused by our personal and community ancestors. 

Program: please arrive early so we can start on time

9:45 am – Gather for coffee/tea and donuts in the social hall

10:00 am – Welcome and chalice lighting – Rev. Rachael

10:10 am – Introduction to the workshop – J. Gerber

10:15 am – Film showing of 20-minute long My Fathers Name (trailer below)

10:35 am – Facilitated discussion of the film in small groups 

11:00 am – Exploration and sharing of personal ancestry stories  – S. Puckett

11:45 am – Full group discussion on community responsibility for ancestral harm –  J. Gerber

12:00 noon – Closing – Rev. Rachael

Please register for this free workshop.  But don’t hesitate to join us even if you don’t register!  We just want to know how many donuts to buy!

Register Here

Who Has Time for Collective Liberation?

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When I preached the glossary service three weeks ago, I encountered a question that was too big to fit into the time we had for that service. It was about the term “liberal religion.” We have a tagline on our letterhead and now on our website that reads “A liberal religious light since 1893.”

Since we just had the November election, I want to be clear that liberal in the sense of liberal religion does not necessarily describe the electoral politics of our congregation or the Unitarian Universalist religious movement. We don’t endorse any candidates or parties. I do speak about how our values translate into public and collective power. Liberal religion is a term that describes not what a religion believes, or how its people vote, but how its beliefs work, though those things frequently do go hand in hand.

Liberal religion means, broadly, religion that is not limited by fixed doctrine but instead contains a framework for further evolution. Many religions have a liberal tradition–we’re not the only ones. In my seminary education alone, I read and studied with scholars from liberal Protestant Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist traditions. If this is new to you, just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Let me know if you want a bibliography.

In the Unitarian Universalist context, we have made a tradition of outgrowing our own previously held doctrine. We don’t have a creed here. We do have shared values that guide our ethical decision-making. Those shared values are Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity, grounded in a foundation of Love. Conscience, reason, and inspiration are our tools in making ethical decisions.

To go back to 19th century Unitarianism, older than our congregation, Theodore Parker preached about the Transient and Permanent aspects of Christianity. Doctrine on the nature of Christ, the miracles, the things Jesus did two thousand years ago, all of that was transient; the teachings of love are permanent, and that is what we carry with us. And you know what, a lot of what Theodore Parker wrote turned out to be transient too.

Liberal religion expects to grow and change. I really hope that one hundred years from now, all of my ethical commitments like:

  • All genders are sacred and trans people are free to live as their truest selves
  • Migration is a human right in an unstable world. People need the freedom to migrate and the safety to not migrate.
  • All people deserve freedom and a say in their government
  • All people have the right to food, housing, healthcare, education, and support throughout their lives

I hope all of those ethical statements sound ridiculously outdated someday, and the sooner the better, because then we will have built a world where those things are taken for granted.

But the real question here, from the person who submitted this term for the glossary service was, ‘Is there such a thing as radical religion?’ I don’t frequently hear those words together, though Unitarian Universalists and others do talk about radical meaning grasping something at the root, getting the whole metaphorical carrot, I guess, and not just the leaves.

I more frequently hear us talk about the difference between liberal theologies and liberation theologies. Liberal religion, with its liberal theologies, is concerned with the growth and freedom of the individuals who practice and believe them. Liberation theologies are concerned with generating freedom where it’s missing. In seminary, I studied Latin American liberation theology, Black liberation theology, Indigenous and Asian and African liberation theologies, women’s and queer liberation theologies. My friend Rebecca Stevens-Walter is a children’s liberation theologian. Liberation theologies ask what does salvation mean for someone who is oppressed?

I find this question fascinating when we hold it in the context of Universalism, which is to say that all people are loved without reservation and deserve what they need to thrive; liberation theology reminds us that those of us who face particular oppressions might need more than one-size-fits-all salvation. It’s why we have Black Lives Matter and a Pride flag on the outside of our building. Sometimes loving everybody means being on the side of people particularly. Love makes demands of our consciences, and loving everybody means dismantling oppression, for the freedom and healing of both the oppressed and the oppressor.

Liberation theology in a theistic frame says that God is on the side of the oppressed. God never stops loving everyone, but sometimes love means stopping harm, righting wrongs, making sure the people who don’t have enough get what they need. You can see this idea in the ministry of Bishop William Barber, Rev. Liz Theoharis, and the multi-faith coalition at the heart of the Poor People’s Campaign. It says in the Bible and the religious texts of many traditions that how we treat those who are poor, those who have less power, matters more than who can offer the best sacrifice.

The world has so many needs right now, and always, and none of them is more important, even if they seem to take turns as most dire and urgent. Food insecurity matters, and healthcare, and safety for immigrants and trans and queer people. And disaster response. And really everything. In the Beloved Community, it all matters, from ending genocide down to the tiniest animal shelter.

I often ask you to imagine the Beloved Community, where everyone has what they need to thrive, where we no longer experience racism, poverty, militarism, where we build positive peace and settle conflict constructively, without violence. I have never lived in the Beloved Community. It has not yet existed, at least in the sense of everyone in the whole world having what we need.

But I have experienced it in tiny glimmers. A holiday dinner where everyone, including diabetics and vegans and omnivores and food-allergics sat down hungry and got up satisfied. A meeting where people came together broken and in conflict and decided to meet the humanity in one another, not to compromise or even agree to disagree but simply to hear one another. Maybe even an election like this past Tuesday, in which voters all across the country repudiated the ongoing persecution of poor people, disabled people, immigrants, and trans and queer people by voting for change.

Like with most things, collective liberation, I don’t know how to get to the end goal from these tiny glimmers. I don’t have a plan. But like any kid who grew up with the Ghostbusters, the X-Men, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I believe that having a plan is not nearly as important as having a team. Having a team means that we don’t all need to have the same gifts, and it’s better if we don’t.

Deepa Iyer’s children’s book We Are the Builders, as well as her helpful workbook Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection propose ten roles for social change.

  • Frontline responders: These are the folks who mobilize quickly, who always seem ready to help and calm in the storm. The first example I can think of here is LUCE, responding to ICE detentions. LUCE was part of the ICE bystander training we hosted last month, and I am so grateful that they’re running the hotline for ICE sightings, verifying them, and helping those who have been detained and their families.
  • Visionaries: These are the people who know where we’re going, the ones who ask if the direction we are heading will get us to our ultimate goal. Sometimes these are the ones who wind up at the microphone at a protest, the ones who reconnect us to our hope.
  • Builders: These folks do details, solve the problems, and get it done. We have a lot of builders in this congregation, and I appreciate you all so much.
  • Disrupters: These are the people who take risks to call out injustice. Think of whistleblowers. Think of people in inflatable frog costumes pointing out the cruelty of our government.
  • Caregivers: These are the folks who make it safe for others to get what they need and feel their feelings. We don’t always name the caregivers as an important part of movements, but they are the ones who remind us to rest, make sure we eat, ask us how we’re taking care of ourselves. We would fall apart without them.
  • Experimenters: These are the out-of-the-box thinkers, the ones who are willing to try new things and see what works, what doesn’t, and what we learn along the way. They call us beyond our comfort zones and have faith that we can survive and learn from things that don’t go according to plan.
  • Weavers: These are coalition-builders, the ones who find what we have in common across perceived differences. They keep the larger ecosystem in mind and can look beyond self-interest. They build bridges between communities.
  • Storytellers: These are the poets, the documentary filmmakers, the photographers, the ones who make a narrative out of the moments and complex characters out of headlines. They connect the movement to its humanity.
  • Healers: These are the people who move our society and movements, as well as our congregation, into healthier ways of being and interacting. This looks like practicing moving through emotions together, repairing relationships, sitting with grief.
  • Guides: These are the wise elders, regardless of age, who translate their own experience for others to use, who know that some things may be different this time around, but their thoughtfulness can be a resource.

The disrupters and weavers, for example, don’t understand things the same way, or work the same way, but both roles, or really all ten, are necessary for creating a future that is actually for all of us. And infighting between people whose ultimate goals are aligned is a huge distraction from our collective liberation. Which is not to say that we need to play nice with those who dehumanize us and those we love, but the work we do to come together across difference is part of the work of building Beloved Community.

Nobody is all of these social change roles. I tell myself that, over and over, and sometimes it sinks in that I, or you, don’t have to be good at all of them. Because together, we have one another. Collective liberation needs all of us working in our different ways, not all doing the same thing. Once again, we’re called to connection not perfection.

If you feel guilty that protests make you anxious, if you don’t know the right thing to say when times are hard, if you hate phone-banking, that’s okay. It’s just not your role. Do you believe me when I say that there are people who feel the joy of their community at a protest, who actually enjoy knocking on strangers’ doors to canvass for an issue, who get a thrill from asking for donations? They really exist. I encourage you to find your role in making the world a better place, the place that makes you feel alive and connected to your purpose. If you have time or money to give, and you can do so with joy, then you’ve found your place just right.

And you know what, maybe what you can do right now is survive, and that is enough. The world is a better place with you in it. As Julian Jamaica Soto says, “All of us need all of us to make it.”

So maybe sometimes it feels like we don’t have time to get everybody free, but it won’t be Beloved Community until everyone belongs. We’re not piecemeal struggling people up into privilege. We’re called to build something so much better, joyfully interdependent, for a better world than we have ever known. So, it’s not so much who has time for collective liberation as who has time to wait?

None of us can do everything, and all of us can do something. All of us need all of us to make it. May we each find the gifts we can offer with delight. Amen.

To view the sermon, click the link below.

 

Featured photo by Kelly Cristine on Unsplash

Support Land Back Movement in Massachusetts

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TO:  Individuals and Faith-based Communities interested in supporting land back in Massachusetts

FROM:  The UU Society of Amherst (UUSA) Indigenous Awareness Circle

SUBJECT:  Please join us in supporting this land back project

You are invited to join us in supporting the land back efforts of the Belchertown-Nipmuc Farm Conservation Alliance towards the rematriation of Lampson Brook Farm, 430 acres of state-owned farm fields and forested land, to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band of Grafton, MA.  

There are two ways to support this effort. 

and/or…

  • You may join the many other local farm and faith-based organizations (listed below) who have agreed to sponsor this effort.  As an example, the UUSA Indigenous Awareness Circle has published a statement of support.

The Belchertown-Nipmuc Farm Conservation Alliance is a group of Belchertown residents and allies working with the state-recognized Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band (Native Nipmuc peoples of our area) who intend to help conserve the Lampson Brook Farm and the legacy of sustainable farming in the region. 

The Lampson Brook Farm represents a 430-acre historic site comprising a 240-acre forest parcel, 120-acre commercial agricultural parcel, 44-acre community farm parcel; a 10-acre enterprise zone parcel; and the 16-acre historic Jepson farmstead parcel and grounds.  The New England Small Farms Institute (NESFI) makes part of the land available for new farmers and also supports community gardens.  The local Belchertown-Nipmuc Farm Conservation Alliance has asked for the Lampson Brook Farm to be transferred to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band for stewarding in the future. Their proposal includes NESFI continuing to lease the land they are currently farming.

More information may be found at: 

Belchertown-Nipmuc Farm Conservation Alliance

Lampson Brook Farm Board of Directors

Lampson Brook Farm Management Plan

New England Small Farms Institute

Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band

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Why we support this effort

The Lampson Brook Farm Management Plan (linked above), developed by Conservation Works LLC at the behest of the Lampson Brook Farm Board of Directors, outlines a process for transfer of the land from the Massachusetts Division of Capital Management and Maintenance to new owners.  According to the recommendation, “The Board will look for ways in which the new parcel owners can strengthen the farm’s diversity and revitalize its infrastructure. The Board is also interested in examining ways to include farmers of color and low-income farmers in decision-making, and work with Indigenous peoples in guiding the future of the farm.”  It is unclear at this time how the land will be transferred. 

Based on this recommendation and conversations with many of the major stakeholders, the UUSA Indigenous Awareness Circle believes the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band and their non-profit corporation, is best positioned to lead the development and management of this public property in a manner consistent with Unitarian Universalist core values. 

Learn more about the UUSA Indigenous Awareness Circle.

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The following is a growing list of agricultural and other organizations that support the effort to rematriate Lampson Brook Farm to the Nipmuc Peoples.

  • Grow Food Northampton, Northampton, MA
  • Kestrel Land Trust, Amherst, MA
  • Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), South Deerfield, MA
  • Mount Grace Conservation Land Trust, Athol, MA
  • Equity Trust, Amherst, MA
  • Simple Gifts Farm, Amherst, MA
  • Phoenix Fruit Farm, Belchertown, MA
  • Nutwood Farm, Cummington, MA
  • Abundance Farm, Northampton, MA
  • Tikkun Olam Committee of Congregation B’nai Israel, Northampton, MA
  • Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, Amherst, MA
  • Western MA Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
  • Western MA Land Justice Affinity Group
  • Many Hands Catering (formerly Belly of the Beast restaurant), Northampton, MA
  • Handle Factory Community Clay Center, Shelburne Falls, MA
  • Valley Community Development, Northampton, MA
  • Race and Class Working Group of Mt Toby Friends Meeting, Leverett, MA
  • Racial Justice Committee of the Northampton Friends Meeting, Northampton, MA

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Listen to this touching song by a local singer/song writer about rematriation in Belchertown….

https://adamsweet.bandcamp.com/track/nipmuc-rematriated

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Photo by Caleb Wright on Unsplash

For more information on the work of the UUSA Indigenous Awareness Circle, see: https://uusocietyamherst.org/indigenous-awareness-circle/ 

Come Cry With Me

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Come Cry With Me

The video of this sermon along with the introductory children story may be found on You Tube.

John Gerber; September 21, 2025

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NOTE: this sermon was preceded by a story told to the children of the congregation in which a slippery green seaweed and a big brown aquatic fungus where thrown up on a rock together.  They were both in danger of dying. but they chose to work together and created a new being, a lichen, an interdependent community comprised of two formerly separate organisms. This version was adapted from a story by Mark McMenamin and Mary Klein titled the Wedding of Seaweed and Fungus

Text of the sermon…..

The home I grew up in was divided with respect to both politics and religion, much like our nation today. But unlike our nation, the household of my youth was divided – but not divisive.

Our home on the north shore of Long Island was a two-family house with my grandparents residing on the ground floor and my parents, two brothers, and me upstairs.

My grandmother, Jennie, was a die-hard Rockefeller Republican from New York and my father was a dedicated Mayor Ed Kelly Democrat from the south side of Chicago.  They didn’t agree on many political questions, but they never expressed animosity toward the other.

The first presidential election I can remember was between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy in 1960.  My family was evenly divided.  I remember it was something of a family joke that although they knew their votes would cancel each other out, they all went off to vote on election day in good spirits.

My maternal grandfather was from an Irish-Catholic “potato famine” clan in NY City.  He had been disowned by his family and excommunicated by the Catholic Church for marrying my Episcopalian grandmother and allowing Mom to be raised outside of the true faith.   My Roman Catholic father and my Episcopalian mother could not be married in the sanctuary of the Catholic church because of their so-called mixed marriage.

Somehow the family navigated these divisions with grace and good humor.  I suspect there was more tension around politics and religion in my household than I was privy too.  But when I told my parents I intended to marry my Jewish high school girlfriend, they were supportive and helped us find a hippy rabbi from Greenwich Village to lead the ceremony.

That was then…..

Today… we are deluged with a steady stream of political, ethnic and religious animosity – an “us” vs. “them” culture war.   My upbringing didn’t prepare me for the rancor we experience in the public arena today.  I’m disturbed when I watch the news, and all I can see is anger, blame, ridicule…..  judgement, derision… and rage.

It seems socially acceptable today, to condemn, and even to hate people from different political, religious or ethnic backgrounds.  And there is certainly no space for the sort of collaboration demonstrated by that slippery green seaweed and that big brown fungus wondering how they were ever going to survive, stranded on a rock.

How did those two distinct species ever find the humility and grace to work together to not only save their own lives, but to create an entirely new life form, lichens, which by every measure has been wildly successful?

I have shared this story of evolution with my students for many years in the great hope that they might come to see the value of cooperation over competition.  Maybe some do.  Others probably just want to know if it is going to be on the test.

My appreciation for this life affirming story took a giant leap forward when I read about lichens in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s now classic book, Braiding Sweetgrass; Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. 

Listen to this!

She writes…. “Scientists were interested in how the marriage of alga and fungus occurs.  But when they put the two together in the laboratory and provided them with ideal conditions for both, they ignored each other.

“It was only when scientists created harsh and stressful conditions, that the two would turn toward each other and begin to cooperate.”

It was the extreme stress of being “thrown up on a rock” that resulted in cooperation, not just across political, ethnic, or religious lines…. but between two very different species.

How did they ever communicate across the “us vs. them” – green/brown divide?  I wonder, was it because being creatures of nature they could intuitively sense the interconnectedness of all beings, much like people from many Indigenous cultures?

Sherri Mitchell, the author of the powerful book, Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, reminds us that “we all belong to one another, and we are responsible for each other’s well-being”.  We Unitarian Universalists call this “widening the circle of concern” as outlined in the 2020 UUA study by that name.

But how can we widen our circle to include those voters, who for example, supported a presidential candidate who is now actively dismantling American democracy, militarizing our cities, erasing efforts at inclusion, and arresting and deporting the most vulnerable among us?  How could we be anything but full of anger?

Father Richard Rohr, a modern-day Franciscan prophet wrote in his latest book, The Tears of Things….. “Life disappoints and hurts us all, and the majority of people, particularly men, do not know how to react – except as a child does, with anger and rage.”

We are good at anger and rage.

Anger at these injustices is surely understandable and may indeed get us off the couch.  But Sherri Mitchell reminds us that anger will not help us to “collectively dream a new world into being, with gentleness and reverence”.  She asks us to create space for the heart-to-heart communication, understanding and empathy that has the potential to transform “us and them” into “all of us.”

How do we begin this difficult work?

Father Rohr teaches that just below the surface of anger is a deeper emotion…  sadness.  He suggests that after the initial flare up of anger in response to yet another ICE raid, for example, we should dig deeper into our own feelings.  He offers us the counterintuitive step of sharing our vulnerability with others in the form of tears.

He writes …. “mere rage will not change anything.  Tears often will, first by changing the one who weeps, and then by moving others.”

Of course, we must respond to the abuses of social injustice …. and anger makes us feel powerful, at least for a short time.   But I wonder if the deep work of transformation needed today, and in fact has been needed for a long time in this country, would not be better served by a surrender to shared grief in the face of injustice and violence.

Sherri Mitchell, wrote..  “my group, Native Americans, have suffered an unrecognized holocaust in this country. The brutal genocide of Native peoples is hard to acknowledge for many, especially for those who have inherited value from the loss and destruction that occurred here.”

This truth has been largely ignored by those of us of European descent who live, work and worship today on stolen land.  Mitchell and others point out that the unhealed grief caused by European settlers in what we now call North America, and the violence that followed, affects us still today.

She explains… “we are all carrying grief, a deep unimaginable grief that impacts how we connect with one another.  It is a cumulative emotional and spiritual wound that results from the history of violence that we all share.” 

Mitchell teaches that this history of violence is carried forward today as a form of ancestral trauma in the bodies of Native Peoples who suffered unimaginable harm AND of white Americans whose ancestors caused the harm, including those of us who continue to benefit from the harm.

I had the privilege of attending a weekend workshop organized by an intertribal coalition of Native peoples last spring at Woolman Hill in Deerfield.  Native as well as non-tribal peoples like myself, were asked to remember the pain of our ancestors.  The feeling that dominated the weekend was not anger…. but grief, followed by a resolve to learn from each other and do better.  I believe we have much to learn from Indigenous traditions, as Native peoples in this country have had a long time to learn how to survive heartbreak.

We know that both heartbreak and rage may exist side by side within each one of us.  But the hard, hard work of social justice and healing might be more successful if it was motivated by shared grief grounded in love, rather than rage, based in fear.  It was fear-based rage after all that brought us the violent white men in the red MAGA hats.

We have a choice. And as Unitarian Universalists, we have made the claim that we will side with love.

I try…..

Nevertheless, my immediate instinctual reaction to everything from news of the arrest and deportation of innocent people… to the guy I saw last winter in South Florida walking down the aisle of a grocery store wearing a red MAGA hat… and what I imagined was a self-important smirk on his face… well, my first reaction may be …. anger.

I’m not suggesting that we deny the fear or bury the anger, but I know that anger aimed at the guy in the grocery store won’t erase the culture of white supremacy that dominates politics today, in fact, it might inflame it.

On the other hand, following Brene Brown’s wise counsel to have the courage to “lead with vulnerability” …. opening myself to feel and express grief might result in a heart to heart connection even among people who hold different political views.

Anger divides….. shared grief has the potential to connect.  And the bad/good news is that everyone gets to experience grief at some time in their lives, regardless of political affiliation, ethnic, or religious background.  Sharing this grief over all that we have lost, whether that be an election, a dream, an opportunity, or a loved one, may make space for something new to emerge.

Many of us who have experienced a deep personal loss understand that loss has the potential to “crack us open”.  My own “cracked open” heart has become “softer” and more likely to experience empathy and compassion for others since my wife died.

Sherri Mitchell teaches that grief and celebration are not only natural but necessary to a balanced life and a healthy society.  The sometimes wild, painful expression of shared sorrow in the form of tears, song, ritual and stories are a required element of the healing process for individuals and perhaps nations.

The feeling that dominates my own understanding of the long history of violence against Native peoples in the land we now call North America, is a deep sadness.

I have the same feeling about our current political situation, and this sadness motivates me to march, to sing, to write letters, to donate, to vote, to listen to the viewpoints of others with an open heart, and to cry…. not alone but together.  Personal sadness won’t heal the “us vs. them” divide, but if we have the courage to share our grief with each other we might build a broad enough coalition to make a difference.

That slippery green alga and the big brown fungus sacrificed their own bodies to build something new, a lichen, two separate species joining together to create an interdependent community of beings.  What were they thinking?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that we have all been thrown up on a rock.

And I know that evolution is not done with us yet.  The emergence of new species and perhaps even new interdependent communities, perhaps Beloved Communities, is possible.

This is NOT the end of the story.

And something…. perhaps… just perhaps something completely surprising and entirely new will emerge… tomorrow.

May it be so….

Amen.

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Photo by Caleb Wright on Unsplash

 

The Glow of Generosity

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A sermon by Rev. Rachael Hayes

Last June, our congregation adopted a mission statement in our annual meeting. What I appreciate about this mission statement is that it was crowdsourced from our congregation rather than proposed by a few individuals.

The mission statement process began with two questions: what is our purpose, and how does it guide us?

The Committee on Shared Ministries asked these questions, or versions of them, over the course of two years. Why do we exist? What do we want to mean in our community?

And it became clear to us, very early on, that there were three main reasons our congregation exists:  

  • To Support one another through a culture of connection.
  • To Nurture our spirits as we learn and grow together.
  • And to Build Beloved Community within and beyond our Congregation by putting our ideals and values into action.

That’s our mission statement. The longer version has more detail about how we want to do those things, but this is the story we heard over and over again from the members of our congregation.

I don’t think anyone in the congregation would have phrased these things exactly the way they sound in the formal statement, but it’s clear that the voices who contributed had a shared trajectory. Though some of us take side quests, we’re more or less on the same path.

The mission of the congregation has changed over the last nearly 140 years. Well, it has and hasn’t. The Universalist circuit-riding preachers came to Amherst in the late 19th century with their mission of hope not hell, of universal belovedness, and all of that sounds like what we’re up to right now. Their version had a lot more Jesus in it than ours, but the central message of Love, in our relations with one another, in our theology and our practice, in our relations with the larger world, that’s what we’ve always been here to do.

Communities guided by liberal theology have followed our values above all, and that’s why I am so encouraged by our mission statement. We do love, and this is how we do it.

I like to imagine how our congregation from any point in our past would respond to our congregation now.

The woman preacher part wouldn’t be especially scandalous. Universalists have had women preachers, going back to Olympia Brown. She wasn’t the first woman preacher, because women have preached forever, but she was the first woman ordained by her denomination in the US. She was ordained in 1863, before our congregation existed, and pastored congregations in Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts; Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Racine, Wisconsin. Our congregation has actually known women ministers since the 1890s. So, while my gender might be scandalous for those of us who grew up in or hearing about traditions without women clergy, it’s nothing new for our congregation.

Our congregation has celebrated queer relationships and families since at least the 1990s. Kids have been growing up in queer families here for decades. I don’t actually know the date of our first same-sex union. If you have more information on that, I’d love to hear it.

Some of our traditions might feel like they have always been there. The Water Ritual, which we celebrated last week, is about 40 years old; the Flower Ceremony is about 100 years old. Sharing Joys and Sorrows is maybe 50 years old. Though the iconography of the flaming chalice goes back to world war 2, lighting the chalice in worship only began in the 1980s. 

Traditions come and go, but the central value of love remains.

What are we here to do? We’re here to love.

During the 2024 and 2025 General Assemblies of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which is to say the big national meeting of Unitarian Universalists, delegates from congregations all over the country voted to affirm a change to Article II of the UUA’s bylaws. Stay with me–I know bylaws is a magic word that can put some people to sleep. This is the section of our bylaws that talks about why the Unitarian Universalist Association exists, including the Principles and Sources we affirm. How many of you are aware that the UUA bylaws no longer lists these Principles?

The details are slightly different, but it’s all still there, perhaps in a more expansive fashion.

Instead of listing principles, we have six values supported by the central value of love. Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity.

And though I was absolutely in favor of this change, the word Generosity catches something in me. Maybe because one sense of the word implies that we should have a lot of money to give away, or that it implies money or class in general. And we don’t worship money, and we value each other’s character and actions, not parentage.

But generosity is so closely related to generate, and generate is a very exciting word. Generate as in put into motion. Generate as in give birth to. How do Unitarian Universalists put our love into motion? Because when we’re living our values, we do. We don’t just congratulate each other for being good and loving–we make things happen.

Across the national association, you can see those things when you flip through the pages of UU World magazine. But let’s talk closer to home. Love is making things happen here. 

  • Love is cooking up potatoes and eggs and sausage for over 100 people each week, during our Wednesday community breakfast.
  • Love is connecting with organizations making the world a better place, introducing them to our congregation, and sharing our offering plate with them.
  • Love is getting up early on a Sunday morning to sing in the choir, preparing anthems that open our hearts.
  • Love is calling our attention to issues that matter: indigenous awareness, climate justice, reproductive justice, democracy.
  • Love is carefully funding and enacting our mission so that we have a lasting impact for our members and our community.
  • Love is caring for a precious and peculiar wooden meetinghouse building so that we have a place to be together.
  • Love is putting that same building in the service of the wider community, offering it as a meeting place for justice, diversity, and collective memory.
  • Love is welcoming people to the service on Sunday, at the door, with social hour snacks, with tech, with careful planning and execution of the service.
  • Love is visiting someone going through a rough time, sometimes bringing a home-cooked meal or a bag of cider donuts.
  • Love is nurturing the ethical and spiritual selves of our children and youth, especially while we keep our program running without a director of religious education.
  • Love is pitching in for potlucks and suppers, is daring to be known and to know others in small groups, is playing charades and building connections. And building trust, with people who just happened to show up to this same congregation.

Each one of those small acts of love is wonderful, is a seed. But together, they grow and grow. This is what our congregation is made of. It’s not made of shingles or stained glass. It’s the organic and mystical network between people who have decided to put their love into action. It’s a whole micro-ecosystem of living in generosity, of love in active connection.

In 1893 or in 2025, our congregation has only ever been made of what a group of people decided to accomplish together. I joke sometimes that what is a congregation if not a group project through the centuries, but the institution matters, and it’s a thing that gives us hope on hard days. Because it’s a thing that gives us hope on hard days.

We have come through hard days together. The early covid pandemic, the first Trump administration, just to name a couple. Sometimes these feel like the hardest days. I don’t know. But these are the days we have now. It may feel frivolous to ask you to put your time and attention and energy into our congregation when so much is going wrong, but I don’t think that’s true. The touchstones of investing our attention into something we can feel making a difference can sustain us, not just the connections we nurture.

And it’s not only the giving side of that investment that builds our generosity. There is reciprocity to this flow. I know that we’d all love to give from the things that are perfect and finished in ourselves, but our congregation is made of connection, not perfection. Please don’t wait till you’re out of the hospital to let us know that you’ve been sick. Don’t wait for the crisis to be over and digestible to open your heart. These connections that make us stronger are forged in vulnerability, not in presentability or excellence.

When I found Unitarian Universalism as a young adult, I was in a rough place. I was grieving the end of my first career, realizing that it didn’t offer what I wanted after all. The centerpoint of my week was my therapy appointment, not exactly something I looked forward to. And then I walked through the doors of Fourth Universalist. I began to live my week Sunday to Sunday, not therapy to therapy. This is not a rejection of therapy–I didn’t quit going. But my therapy was full of things in my life that I had to figure out how to change. The congregation was something else altogether: that’s where I connected with the part of me that has always been worthy and whole. Being with a room full of people who saw my worthiness and wholeness week after week made it easier for me to see it in myself.

Being part of that kind of community made me want to share it. To receive it, but also to make it. It made me generous, in a way that didn’t have much to do with money at all. I came to the potluck. I helped replant the garden. I facilitated a small group. I co-led services. I started a racial justice initiative, which led to public witness events both at marches and in front of our doors. Or rather, we did, the members did, together. 

Getting involved in that congregation transformed my life. I had more capacity and more daring to take on hard things, including seminary, including surviving other life changes, because I had a network of generosity bolstering me. People who believed in me abundantly, people I wanted to be just as good to as they were to me. I don’t know if I would be your minister now without the gift of being so deeply connected to that congregation for that pivotal period of my life.

It is a gift to yourself, not just to the congregation, to participate in the life and labor of the congregation. Today following the service, we’re having an event in the social hall. It’s called Building Shared Community, and I encourage you to go and find a new way to get involved in the many committees, circles, and events that make our community strong, generous, and brilliant. This is our congregation, and it will be what we make it.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash