It is delightful to know that many of you enjoyed today’s Quaker-inspired service, which allowed for ample silence and many voices to be heard. I heard that many of you did indeed find silence to be good for you. We will definitely use this format again in the future.

I shared some short readings from various authors with you that were meant to “wake us up” and change our theological perspectives so that we can behave in ways that, as worded in the UUA’s newly proposed Article II, “cherish Earth and all beings by creating and nurturing relationships of care and respect.” Furthermore, this new statement calls us to shift our theological perspective by understanding we are not separate from nature, but a part of it: “With humility and reverence, we acknowledge our place in the great web of life, and we work to repair harm and damaged relationships.”

There was one remaining quote I didn’t have time to share. Of all the readings I selected, it may carry the most disruptive voice, the voice that seeks to kick us out of our complacency. It was written by Wendell Berry, an American novelist, poet, and environmental activist.

“We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.” –Wendell Berry

How do you feel called to be radical enough to nurture relationships of care and work to repair harm and damaged relationships?