Dear Beloved ERUUF,

How are you feeling in this moment?

We suspect that your feelings are as diverse as we all are. Perhaps as diverse as we all are in a single day.

We invite you to stop what you’re doing and pause for a moment.

Turn off the television, radio, put down your phone or whatever it is you are involved with. Just for a moment.

Connect with how you are feeling right now.

Take a deep breath in. Let it out. Release in this moment any tension you might be holding. Any feeling that is not serving you in this moment.

Breathe in again, and let it out.

❀❀❀❀

Though the national election has been extraordinarily disappointing for so many of us who have given our energies, time, talent, treasure, and our most precious gifts of all -- our vote and our hope -- toward an outcome that went unrealized, let us not lose heart or hold regret. Rather, take heart in the efforts you’ve made. Positive outcomes were realized in our local and statewide elections. We participated in democracy and this is its way: it will disappoint us and even break our hearts at times.

Yet, we, as people of this democracy must push through and hold fast with great determination to what we believe is most fair, most right, most just for each other, and for the people of our nation.

The weeks, months, and years ahead will challenge us in many ways. But let us use this as an opportunity to hold onto and live into our Unitarian Universalist principles and values. Let us hold onto the community we have built here at ERUUF for our collective sustenance and safety and imaginative planning. Let us open our hearts wide to the necessary work of repair and healing, and invite others in for the work of repair and healing with us.

Let us remember that we must always, especially in challenging times like these, center our actions in love. And if we do not know how, let us be determined to learn what we might not know about how to make the centering of love real. There is more love somewhere. We will find it. We will be a safe harbor for it.

For now it is alright, even necessary, to pause. To take a breath, to take a rest, to hold onto those we love. To hold one another in beloved community. And we will get back to the work at hand. Our hands and our hearts shall certainly be needed.

Love and Courage, Dear ERUUF.

 

Rev. Jacqueline Brett		Ann Verdine-Jones
Lead Minister		Chair, Board of Trustees