Hello Congregation:
Last week’s sermon continued the theme of Unitarian Universalist history and drew heavily on the book The Prophetic Sisterhood by Cynthia Grant Tucker. She researched letters, journals, and diaries to document the experience of Unitarian and Universalist women ministers in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Several of you asked about the blessing I quoted in last week’s sermon, so here it is:
“Take courage friends.
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
and the stakes are very high.
Take courage.
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.”
~~~by Wayne B. Arnason
I quoted those words because they remind us of how to keep going when heartbreak feels all around — whether being heartbroken about an institution or another situation. Perhaps your mind is focused on the midterm elections; perhaps your heart is aching about the suffering in Israel and Gaza; perhaps you feel empty because of a personal loss.
Living with heartbreak can be exhausting.
Our hearts break because we loved, and because we hope and dream.
Both Kahlil Gibran and Leonard Cohen have poetic lines about how the broken places lead to new beginnings. Sometimes, once a person has lived through heartbreak and can look back at new insights, their lived wisdom gives buoyancy which eases the next heartbreak. May we take courage.
With you on the journey,
Rev. Alex