Liberation: Our Collective Longing
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. ~ Lila Watson
Dear Members and Friends,
Liberation seemed at first to be an ironic and unlikely theme to be exploring in the month of April. So many of us have been sheltering in or in lockdown across the nation and world. So many are feeling anything but free. But liberation is our collective longing now–liberation from this pandemic, from the deaths and suffering, from the fear, from unemployment and economic struggles, from isolation. And along with the challenges the coronavirus has brought are the injustices and oppressions that were already imprisoning people. We see now, perhaps clearer than ever, that “your liberation is bound up with mine.”
So this month, I invite you to join in reflection and conversation about what liberation means to us in this time. How have our understandings of freedom been evolving? What would it mean to live every day knowing that “my liberation is bound up with yours”? What if liberation means letting go–letting go of what we think is “normal,” of bad habits, of consumer culture, of our over-insistence on individualism?
As the month of April unfolds and the natural world continues to bless us with its splendor, I wonder, in what ways are we learning to liberate ourselves and each other. I look forward to reflecting on these questions in community.
Yours in faith, love, and hope,
Rev. Dr. Sandra Fees
- Try Mindfulness by listening to the world around you – take 2 min or even 30 seconds to disengage from what you’re doing and notice what’s around you.
- Try Mindfulness by listening to yourself – What is the ear worm in your head connecting you to and telling you about the moment?
- Try Mindfulness by doing – we are embodied beings. This time in our lives, many of us are being called to use our bodies less or use them in different ways than usual by distancing. Music is the way that we can have an embodied connection across distance!
- So use your bodies the way you do best, maybe that’s singing, maybe that’s playing an instrument, maybe that’s turning your stereo up real loud and dancing your hearts out – maybe it’s turning it up loud enough so your neighbor can dance with you too! (make sure to ask first on that one!)
- Here’s a playlist on liberation to get you started
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=doIhlQSFm00&feature=emb_title
Many of us might feel stuck right now. We might feel stuck at home. It could be that you feel stuck with different schedules than you’re used to. It could be that you’re stuck with different ways to hang out with friends.
One way to free ourselves from feeling stuck is to make a game of it! This is a challenge we get to win! Check out these UU kids from Fort Myers, Florida and take their challenge up – the Chalice Challenge!!
I’m looking forward to seeing how you take up the chalice challenge! The Image for today’s post is a drawing of our UU chalice from David Snedden of Morristown, NJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v9JPR8AOD8&feature=emb_logo
to be free
by Nadine J. Smet-Weiss
Spiritual Director
the greatest liberation
i have found
lies in presence
fully here now
open and opening
grounded
free
to soar
|
