Summer 2023

Dear ones, welcome to summer- the season of light and warmth and life in this part of the world!  I feel like I imagine our Unitarian ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson did, when he told the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School in July 1838 (with some edits for gender inclusivity): “In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life.  The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers.  The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay.  Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade.  Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays.  [Humankind] under them seems a young child, and [their] huge globe a toy.  The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares [their] eyes again for the crimson dawn.  The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily.”  And yet, as I write these words on a warm day in late June, I cannot go outside and draw a deep breath, because wildfires in Canada are burning so fiercely that our air quality in Madison is “very unhealthy”- just a few index points away from being “hazardous.”  It seems that one aspect of the new normal of climate chaos has arrived at our doorstep.  Yikes.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of the world.  Climate chaos, yes, and also rising fascism, disinformation, attacks on human rights and dignity, disparities in access to basic needs…  It feels overwhelming sometimes.  And many people I talk to say the same thing – that it’s really hard to continue to have a positive outlook on things.  My response to this is kind of radical, and probably hard to hear, but here goes – I believe that trying to keep being positive is a misuse of our energy.  I believe that we’re in grief for humanity and for the world, and we’re so conditioned into thinking we have to stay positive that we’re experiencing a deep cognitive dissonance, which manifests as overwhelm.

I don’t think the solution is to try to feel better.  I think the solution – or part of the solution, at least – is to hold our grief.  Feel it, in all the ways it presents itself.  Admit it.  Engage it.  Talk about it.  And do all of this in community, because that’s the only way I believe we’re capable of holding it because it’s just so big.  I say these words every week – we have enough, and we are enough – and part of what I mean by that is that together, in community, we have the resources to take care of ourselves and each other through the grief.  And to work toward building the best, most equitable, safest world that is possible, even as the “normal” we have known unravels.  I’ve talked before about the work of Joanna Macy – the spiral of the “work that reconnects” – and the words that are pouring out of me today are about the “honoring our pain for the world” portion of that spiral.  I’ve been honoring my pain for the world for years now – really, since my now ex-spouse asked me for a divorce in 2016, just 3 months before our last president was elected.  The one thing I consistently experience is that when I try to hold it on my own, I fall apart, and when I engage with people who are also doing this hard work, I can function and even sometimes function well.  I need help.  I need beloved siblings to share this work.  I need community.

So I write these words as I’m preparing for some vacation and study leave time.  I’ll be spending some of that time on my own, reading in preparation for writing a paper on reparations and remembrance, for a ministers’ study group that will meet in November.  That paper, by the way, will most certainly include reflections on the grief I feel when I remember the things I want to offer reparations for.  But most of that time, I’ll be with my kid and/or with other beloveds, nurturing the community I need to keep going as I honor my pain for the world.  My hope for you all, while I’m away, is that you will also spend time with your beloveds, building and nurturing the community that we all need to heal ourselves and this hurting world.  See you in August!

In faith and love,

Karen