Sunny Notes: 02.04.26 - Holding the Paradox
This Mid-Week Update finds us between two Sunday services, each with its own theme and flavor. On February 1, with my co-worship leaders Revs. Rose Edington and Mel Hoover, we explored the significance of African Americans to our Unitarian Universalist tradition, including some of the storms, both literal and figurative, that shaped the landscape of our faith and its movement for racial equity and justice. On February 8, Rev. Tessie Mandeville and I will lead folks in a celebration of the ancient holiday of Imbolc, marking a turn on the Celtic Wheel of the Year, and honoring new beginnings and emergence. Standing in between these two seemingly different services feels to me much like standing in this current moment in our world.
On one hand, there are storms all around, created by our government, ICE, economics, and various systems of injustice and oppression. These storms wreak havoc and tumult and chaos, some of them violent and dangerous. We may feel tossed about, pummeled, and depleted by these storms, unsure how we will continue to weather them.
And yet… while these storms rage, there are good things, beautiful things, emerging all around us. On Sunday, Celebrant Steffany Raynes created an altar arrangement of freshly picked tulips, a harbinger of spring. I saw pregnant bellies in the pews (Imbolc literally means "in the belly"). Despite the storms, there is a Spirit of Life moving through our brutal and beautiful world. It will push through hard ground and human bodies, infinitely intelligent and unfolding, bringing forth gifts, turning the Wheel of the Year ever forward.
May we courageously hold the paradox of our world—a world of devastating storms and devastating beauty. And may you find a balance in this paradox that will best support you—knowing when and how to show up in the storm to provide aid, support, and good trouble; and when to step into a shelter of your own creation, allowing yourself to be nourished and replenished by beauty, awe, and goodness.
— Sunny, minister