Rev. Karen Armina’s message for this month…

• Living Love through the Practice of Presence

  Dear Ones, 

  How are you doing?  There’s a lot to feel sad, angry, and afraid about.  While it’s important to acknowledge and process our sadness and anger and fear, it’s also important to focus on things that feed us – and there’s a lot to be grateful and joyful about!  How we move through this time depends on what we pay attention to, and that applies to the things outside us that we can’t change, and the things inside us that we can.

  This month’s theme is “living love through the practice of presence,” and so I’m reflecting on how practices of presence change how I feel.  It may not surprise you to hear that, when I’m scrolling through news headlines, I feel pretty bleak – and when I listen to the music my kid shares with me while I’m cooking, I feel pretty good.  What we pay attention to is important to our state of mind.  And so, for some part of every day, I’m trying to remember to dance in my kitchen, to walk my dog more slowly so I have time to look at the shape of the landscape and the patterns made by the bare trees, to notice the flavors of my food, to appreciate the wildly different shapes of the cacti and succulents in my south-facing window.  I visited chosen family last week, and they made it a rule to prioritize laughing together, walking in beautiful places, making and eating good food, and telling stories, over talking about our fears for our loved ones and our nation.  It wasn’t that we didn’t feel our fears – it was more that we deliberately chose to be present to each other, which helped me to hold my fears a little more loosely.  And it was lovely.  Now that I’m back home, I’m not ignoring the news, but I am balancing my consumption of it with deliberate practices that feed my soul.  And I’m grateful that I can notice and create beauty and that I can access joy.

  In that spirit of noticing and creating, I want to offer you a music video that a colleague shared widely the day after the election, that I’ve been watching often.  It’s by Spencer LaJoye, who tells audiences they believe “that art can change the world simply by making us feel something.”  It’s very tender, and it’s called “Plowshare Prayer.”  My hope is that it makes you feel something, and that paying attention to what you feel is helpful.

  In faith and love, Karen

  [December 4, 2024]