The BUF Weekly goes out on Wednesday, so I am writing this column on Tuesday, November 3 - Election Day. By the time you read this, we will hopefully have some answers, and hopefully those answers will bring the good news we've been wishing for, organizing for, waiting for...but at this moment on Tuesday, there is still so much we don't know. I do know one thing, however: No matter the outcome of the 2026 midterms, BUF will be here.
On Monday night, I was able to attend our monthly Taizé service of candlelight singing and contemplation (a rare treat, as I am usually in Seattle on Mondays). At the end of the service, Rev. Tessie Mandeville shared that, eight years ago to that very day, they held the first Taizé service at BUF. As Tessie explained:
It was the first term of our current President, and it was the midterms, and it was the night before the elections, and we said, "We need a place to be. We need a place to land. We need a healing place to be together, come what may." And so, for all these years, we have been voices singing no matter what has been happening around us.
Echoing Tessie's words, no matter what happens around us, and come what may, BUF will remain a place of community, a source of healing, and a beacon of light and hope. Whether in celebration or grief, we will continue to live out our values of Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity, all with Love at the center. Love will continue to be the spirit of our Fellowship, and service will continue to give it life.
As the coming days and weeks unfold, as ballots are counted and results are certified, I will leave you with an excerpt of a prayer shared by Side with Love, the organizing strategy team of the Unitarian Universalist Association - Let Love Lead: A Prayer for Election Day by DL Helfer.
Spirit of all that moves among us and through us
As elections near,
help us to let love lead.
Help us recognize that polarization
can also be understood as passion:
Passion to build something better
that holds all of us at the center.
Help us to imagine and to foster
a world in which we listen more than we talk,
where our priority is to learn as much as teach;
A world in which we find ways to connect
across the chasms of difference,
making space for revelation to emerge.
Spirit of love,
help us turn toward love
with the world, with each other, with ourselves—
all the same thing, at its core.
. . . . . . .
Lead us to the love that holds us all and is with us always;
The love that can help us through
the messy and necessary life-altering work
of building movements across beliefs, across difference,
for change that can endure.
Rev. Sunny, minister