The new year is upon us, and we celebrate the triumphs and challenges of 2017. As we enter into this new year, many of us are feeling uncertainty and uneasiness about our future. Many of us aren’t sure how we will fare economically and socially under this new and controversial presidential administration. We aren’t quite sure how successful attempts will be at reversing the gains that our liberal religious movement has made in terms of women’s rights, racial equality, climate and economic justice.
Many of us enter this year with concern and with feeling of groundlessness and disorientation. How shall we navigate this year? How shall we move forward? As Rev. Lois enters sabbatical, may we remember that she has invited us, as persons of faith, to move forward with hope. Let us remember the words offered to us by Re
v. Lois in her last sermon, that the “hope that we can have is the hope that we can imagine.”
This month our community contemplates prophecy, an intentionally broad term with many layers of meaning. In the liberal religious tradition, prophecy most often refers to those words and deeds spoken by people with vision and unwavering hope in our ability to see a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-gender fair and democratic society manifest in this world. As a community that believes in the prophetic gift and priesthood of all our members, logic dictates that “prophecy” also refers to the voice and power that lies in each of us.
In this time of our minister’s sabbatical, we have an opportunity to enter contemplation and discernment for our communal prophetic voice. In other words, we have an opportunity to turn towards the hope that lies in our community imagination. What great work, as a community, can we imagine? What great vision waits for discovery in the wilderness of imagination? What great love can we bring to the world?
The imagination that fuels prophecy is discovered through meditation, prayer, spiritual practice, the arts and study. The gifts that our community possesses in this moment are the perfect ingredients for a full and fruitful path of discernment. Please bring your spiritual practice, your creative works, your wisdom to the community. Prophets, now is the time for you to go to the head of the line.