by WUUC | May 30, 2017 | Minister Blog
“Joy is not in the circumstance, but in the response. The sun rises every day, like it or not. Being entranced by it is a choice.” Rev. Peggy Clark.
Peggy’s life and ministry is all about justice. Every kind of justice from climate justice to racial justice to economic justice and everything in between. She marches, protests, writes her representatives, plans actions, shows up as an ally for other group’s actions, preaches about justice making, and will be the first to sound the alarm. She is also a wife, mother, and a deeply religious person. Her work and her life are not partitioned. They are all woven together.
I found her words about joy being a response to be profound words. I trust them given the work and life Peggy is committed to. The world will always break our hearts into a million little pieces. And the sun will rise every day. Beauty will shine right alongside the heartbreak.
In today’s world when so many things break our hearts and leave us despairing, so many things have to be a choice. “Joy” is one of those choices. As is being entranced by beauty. The choice is yours. Choose joy.
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
by WUUC | May 26, 2017 | Minister Blog
The sun and warm temperatures arrived not a second too soon. Both the clergy and lay leaders are exhausted. The political anxiety in the country and in the world has taken its toll. We want respite, a time out, reassurance, and renewed perspectives. We want a break from it all.
My sabbatical gave me respite, time out, reassurance, and renewal. A much-needed break from it all. That is a privilege I will be forever grateful for. And I am saddened that such time is the exception rather than the norm for people in any profession or stage of life. Everyone is deserving of such time and opportunity.
The Rev. Galen Guengerich, minister of All Souls in New York City, wrote a piece on the value of vacation:
A vacation is a time to empty our lives of the routine experiences which we have come to take for granted, and to replace them with new experiences which we don’t take for granted. If successful, this process once again piques our interest in the life around us. We notice in a new way the play of light and shadow, the smell of the marsh and the pleasure of conversation, the sound of laughter and the feel of raindrops. We have time to think big thoughts, pay careful attention, and ponder things we can never comprehend. Energized by this new appreciation for the world around us, we then return to our everyday lives to find old routines transformed by our new attentiveness.
As we approach summer with its sun, warmth, and longer days, my hope is that folks will find ways to make a vacation out of moments or days or weekends or even months. That we will find time to simply sit for a moment in the sun with our eyes closed, listening to whatever sounds might be all around us. That we might rise early because of the light and go outside to breathe the morning air, see the day breaking, the birds awakening. That we might sit for a moment under the night sky and allow the darkness to surround us. I hope that we do these things not just to “think big thoughts” but to “pay careful attention” that we might know that beauty lives right alongside suffering.
Summer is such a time for paying attention with all of our senses and sensibilities. Every day brings some new emergence or growth in gardens. There is much to be surprised by. The languid heat allows us to stretch out into a slowness. Slowness allows us to sigh and breath. Our breath brings awareness. Awareness creates a space for us to be in.
May these summer months be ones of transformation for your spirits…
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
Rev. Lo will be on vacation July 1- 26 and will be joining the WUUC Camp Out at Deception Pass. She can be reached for emergencies through the church office.
by WUUC | Apr 25, 2017 | Minister Blog
Embodiment. How does each of us inhabit, embody, our bodies? Do you know anyone who actually likes their body just the way it is? Every day and in every way, we are literally assaulted by unrealistic images of what the ideal male or female body should look like in advertising, media, and the entertainment industry. And for folks who are gender non-conforming or non-binary, where are they to find realistic and positive images of themselves? Not all bodies can be starved, supplemented, and sculpted to one “perfect” standard or norm.
Not all overweight or fat people are unhealthy or incapable of physical activity. Not all lean or “normal” weighted people are in shape or healthy. Either end of the spectrum walks around as disembodied: body, heart, mind, and spirit all separate from one another. Our poor beings are unintegrated.
So here’s the thing: as UU’s, we do not believe in “original sin.” We can borrow from the priest, Matthew Fox, who talks about all of us being born with “original blessing.” Can we extend that to our bodies as well? To see them as blessed and perfect just the way they are? Because if we do not accept them and stop beating ourselves up over them, we are harming ourselves. The diet industry is counting on the self-loathing of our embodiment.
Here is my challenge to all of us this month: start with blessing your body just as it is. Be in your body. Try on embodiment…
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
by WUUC | Apr 25, 2017 | Minister Blog
“A leader is someone in whose presence, other leaders are born.” It took me years to learn this and to understand that leadership did not mean doing everything that needs to be done. Leaders delegate. Leaders listen as well as speak. Leaders empower others to bring forth and utilize their skills. Leaders lead from the back of the room as well as from the front. Leaders know that silence is not empty. Leaders may not like conflict but understand that it has a purpose if it is engaged in with the goal of breaking through to something new without taking any hostages. Leaders welcome questions rather than shutting them down. Leaders recognize that power can be a dynamic in relationships. They also know that power is not an evil but a tool that can be used for good. They know it can be abused and misused. Leaders know that trust in them must lead to a new level of responsibility.
All this is to repeat what I said to you prior to going on sabbatical: “I leave you in good hands: each other’s.” The leader in each of you was called out during that time. You and I had prepared well for my absence. And having Rev. Jamil with you ensured that there was a ministerial presence at WUUC. Just as we carefully prepared for my going, the Board and ministry leads under Adam Fass’s leadership, prepared for my return. Once again we have taken up the shared ministry model which has been our strength in this community.
And so now what? Now we move forward. Now we live into our values and our vision of ministry. Now we seek to go deeper in our understanding of what it means to be a community of faith grounded in spiritual practice in everything we do. Now we continue to live into our resolution in support of the movements for Black lives. Now we continue our welcome of transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary persons. Now we become a community of resistance to institutional threats to the values we hold so dear “the inherent worth and dignity of every person; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Business as usual? Perhaps. But also, the work of church with a renewed sense of purpose and place in the world.
Troubling, tumultuous, transforming times. And we, “we were made for these times…”
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
by WUUC | Mar 23, 2017 | Minister Blog
This sabbatical took me from Auschwitz in Poland to the rock and sands of Death Valley. From a Buddhist monastery in Trout Lake, Washington to the stunning and empty beaches of Molokai. Then to the desert lands of New Mexico that Georgia O’Keefe inhabited. It has been a gift. I come back entering the month of April and its theme of transformation, transformed. Every place I encountered worked on me, opening me to quiet, allowing me “to remember what the soul never forgets.”
I carried the beaded necklace you made for me and blessed me with before I left. I have pictures of it in every place I was. Though I carried the necklace with me and all that it meant, I did not carry the daily and ongoing work of the church. If the community learned as much about itself as I did about myself during this sabbatical time, we are all in good shape.
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned during this sabbatical came in the first few weeks as I decompressed: to give you my best, I cannot give you all of me. Though I came of ministerial age when the model was for ministers to work 50-80 hours a week and at a time when a minister and their spouse was seen as a “twofer,” I have come to believe that that model is not only outdated but harmful to clergy, their partners and families, and the churches they serve.
When you literally wander deserts for a period of time without electronics, internet or access to news 24/7, your mind, body, and spirit slow down and become present to just the moment. The combination of sun, wind, and building heat and then the sudden drop of temperature to just above freezing, demand a body awareness that is not necessary in the Pacific Northwest. Huge open space and sky become the visual norm. As do two lane main roads. And a lack of people. One watches the sunset brush color on rock and clouds. Without light pollution from cities, the night sky reveals itself without a veil. The coyotes have their way with the night and the doves greet each morning in song. The landscape both distracts and wipes away all distraction, leaving one exposed, unable to hide from one’s self.
The pace of our lives can be great hiding places. The rapidity at which we live our lives and the clutter of activities that we fill them with can serve not to fulfill but to lose ourselves. How many of us are so exhausted at the end of the day that we unwind electronically and sometimes, mindlessly? How many of us say that we have no time in our schedules to do the most basic tasks of self-care such as feeding ourselves real food, sitting down at a table with family or friends? Or going for a walk or moving one’s body in some way? Or taking even 5 minutes just to stop and be still, taking the internal temperature of our hearts and minds? And spiritual practice? Guess what, it ain’t just for monks in the deserts.
A clergy person who was part of a workshop I took at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico said the following: “I have learned to say and value my ‘No.’ If I can say and trust my ‘No,’ then I know that when I say ‘Yes,’ I am doing so with integrity, energy, and authenticity.”
I have always maintained that Unitarian Universalism’s values and ethics, principles and purposes, are radical in today’s culture. I would like it to push that radicalism further by refusing and resisting the pace and vacuousness of mainstream culture. I would like it to tear through cultural norms that leave us depleted, despairing, and too distracted to even remember who we are. I would hope that it could be a kind of desert for many of us, where instead of hiding our true selves, we dare to know them.
I come back to you carrying the deserts within me. They have reminded me of who I am and of what my soul remembers.
With gratitude,
Rev. Lo
by WUUC | Mar 23, 2017 | Minister Blog
Transformation can come with suddenness and fire and it can come gently and gradually. It can work on you long after the watershed moment: that time which delineates who we were prior to an event from what we have become after an event. We are changed, expanded, fuller in who we are and our living.
A year ago February, the Board defined the purpose of WUUC as that of being a place of transformation of individuals and the world. A tall order and a faithful one. It is the rare person who wanders into a church these days that isn’t looking for some sort of transformation.
Have you experienced transformation in your life? What did it look like? Was it painful or freeing or both and everything in between? What were the “take aways” or gifts from those transformations? Has the WUUC community “transformed you?” Is there something in your life that is calling out for transformation?
Take the time to ponder what transformation means to you and the role it has played in your life.
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
