Binge watching happens when the story we’re invested in ends with a cliffhanger, a revelation, or a surprising twist, and we’ve left wondering, “What happens next? What now?” and then, barely pausing, we click “Next Episode” and continue watching. 

If only the questions of “What Now?” and “What Next?” were so easy to answer in real life! For nearly a year and a half now, we’ve been in pandemic reality, eliminating or limiting contact with beloved family and friends, creating new routines, diving into online school, navigating the slow return to in-person school, juggling roles, working to maintain mental health, losing jobs, getting vaccinated or wondering when we’ll be vaccinated, or worrying about being vaccinated, and struggling to make sense and meaning of what has happened. As we move into the summer, many of us are asking, “When will we be able to hug friends and family again? Sing together again? Return to church? How will we ensure a more fair and just post-pandemic world? What Now? What Next?” 

These questions feel urgent because the answers no longer rest in a far-away-time or distant place. The questions are alive in our hearts and minds. But unlike on Hulu, or Netflix, or Amazon Prime, there’s no “Next Episode” button to click to arrive at the answer.

Instead, we are living in the tension of these questions. We can’t binge our way through them. As people of faith, perhaps we can reshape these questions and ask, “What is the spiritual work right now? What spiritual work comes next? How do we hold grief and gratitude, fear and excitement, uncertainty and new found clarity, all at the same time? How can we go slow, and thoughtfully, trusting that the answers will emerge?”

This summer, in worship, we’ll create space to honor and live with these questions, not rushing toward answers, but engaging in spiritual practices and timeless wisdom, as we prepare our hearts for flesh and blood community, for re-engaging with the world, for doing justice work, hand in hand and side by side, with our neighbors and friends. 

The ‘before time’ is how many people refer to the pre-pandemic world we used to live in. We have not yet arrived in the ‘after times,’ in that post pandemic landscape. The pandemic itself is an extended threshold moment, a time between the known and the unknown. Moving across and through a threshold often ushers in a new way of being and belonging. Crossing a threshold can profoundly mark and shape us. Indeed, there is a collective, growing sense that humanity cannot return to ‘life as normal,’ because ‘life as normal,’ was violent, harmful and destructive to so many people and the planet itself. As a global community, we are at a threshold moment. 

And in our own faith community, we are in a threshold season. This month, we celebrate our Coming of Age Youth and Graduating Seniors. Rev. Justin preaches his last sermon. And together, we move gingerly into a future that is still forming, as we ourselves are formed by the thresholds we cross. 

This May, we will slow down long enough to notice and name the thresholds we are approaching and crossing. Together, we will wonder: “What changes when we cross a threshold? What remains the same? How long can we remain in the threshold space, the door between worlds wide open? What blessings do thresholds offer? And does religious community and spiritual practice help us prepare for the inevitable thresholds we will cross?”

“Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.”  – James Baldwin, Just Above My Head

It’s been suggested that the spiritual practice of accountability is being answerable to someone who helps you stay on target for your spiritual goals and your other life endeavors. In this frame, accountability is something that happens between two people (or a small group of people) who are open, honest, and transparent with each other about what is really happening in their lives, the struggles they are facing, and how they are responding. Together, they check in on each other, encourage each other, and remind each other of the promises and commitments they’ve made. Who are you accountable to in your life? 

In the political framework, we speak about holding our elected officials accountable to the will of the people, particularly those most impacted by various injustices, as opposed to elected officials being accountable to corporate interests or a select group of citizens.

 Closer to our (religious and spiritual) home, the proposed 8th Principle of Unitarian Universalism says, “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountability dismantles racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

In all of these framings, accountability is a kind of responsibility – to be responsible to one’s own heart and goals, to be responsible to those one represents, and to be responsible for creating the Beloved Community. 

Accountability and responsibility can be abdicated. But if we refuse abdication and choose accountability, then we begin again. We choose to change our behaviors and institutions. We tell the truth about how we have fallen short and listen to the truth of those we have impacted. We care for those around us and center those who have been most impacted by our actions. This is how we begin again in accountable relationships. 

Our chalice lighting every Sunday ends with this promise we make to one another: “To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help (to care for) one another.” 

In other words, we care for one another at First Universalist Church. We care about living our values and beliefs. We care about being engaged in the needs of the world and we care deeply about one another. Over the years, we have developed a ministry of the church that extends care services to its members in a variety of ways. We provide rides to the doctor, meal trains for families in a crisis, and grief kits when a loved one dies. Another important service is one offered by our Care Companions. Care Companions are trained individuals matched with a careseeker in the congregation that needs someone to talk with on a semi regular basis. 

But care is not limited to trained professionals and trained volunteers. There are dozens of ways to care for one another and those in our community, and dozens of ways to be cared for. At its core, care is about compassion, the root of which means to “suffer with.” Care and compassion move us beyond sympathy to deep and profound empathy, to understanding and sharing the feelings of another, to suffering and rejoicing with another human being. This is the heart of caring. This month, we will explore the rich ground of how we give and receive care, and how we can take care of ourselves, avoiding burnout and caregiving fatigue.

The poet Emily Dickinson writes: 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Over 150 years later, Michael Eric Dyson, in his book, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, writes something similar: “To be blunt, you (white people) are emotionally immature about race…We are forced to be gentle with you, which is another way of saying we are forced to lie to you. We must let you down easy, you, the powerful partner in our fraught relationship…You get upset when we tell you that whiteness has often been damaging and toxic. You get angry when we tell you how badly whiteness has behaved throughout history.” Dyson’s writing makes one wonder: How long can the truth be told slant? What is the collective moral cost of half truths and indirect truths being told?

When witnesses are sworn into a court of law, they promise “To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” As a country, we claim to value the truth, and yet we can scarcely face and acknowledge our history, riddled with myths and outright lies, and the ways that that history is still alive today. 

What does it take to hear the truth? To tell the truth? What shifts and gets unlocked in our bodies, our families, our churches, our communities, the body of our country, when we start taking the risk of telling and hearing the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, challenging, and dangerous?   

Archbishop Rowan Williams writes, “Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable.” These words suggest that truth by itself is not enough. Truth and love must dance together, striving to open the tight, defensive, scared places within the human heart. 

This month, we will explore the spiritual work of hearing and telling the truth in love. 

This month, please join us for these Sunday services:

• Sunday, Feb. 7, with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Sunday, Feb. 14 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Sunday, Feb. 21 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Sunday, Feb. 28 with Rev. Arif Mamdani

And these Wednesday services:

• Wednesday, Feb. 3 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Wednesday, Feb. 10 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Wednesday, Feb. 17 with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Wednesday, Feb. 24 with Rev. Karen Hutt

As we move into 2021, clear that we cannot return to “normal,” how will we actively “choose change,” re-imagine our lives, our purpose, the structure of our society, and the things we focus on?

The answer to these questions rests in choices both small and large. Change sometimes feels impossible, but we forget that change is dynamic, alive, lurking in every corner, and is happening all around us, all the time. Change can begin when we speak the truth, when we turn toward the feeling rising in us, rather than push it away, when we name what is real for us, and listen to what is real for others, and when we stop, and take a breath, before we respond.

In her book, Parable of the Sower, science fiction writer Octavia Butler writes, “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.” These words invite us to consider: What does it mean to choose change? To step fully into the “God flow,” the river of change, wide awake, and let it work on us, and us on it, as it shapes our relationships, spirit, and the course of our lives?

When it comes to choosing change, the poet John O’Donahue offers these questions to reflect on: “Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different? Where did I allow myself to receive love? What reached me today? How deep did it imprint? What did I avoid today?” 

This month, through message, song, prayer, and video, we will explore what it means to “choose change” and to embrace the lasting truth that is change.

This month, please join us for these Sunday services:

• Sunday, Jan. 3 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Sunday, Jan. 10, Remembrance Sunday, with Rev. Justin Schroeder and Rev. Arif Mamdani
• Sunday, Jan. 17, MLK Sunday, with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Sunday, Jan. 24 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Sunday, Jan. 31 with Rev. Justin Schroeder

And these Wednesday services:

• Wednesday, Jan. 6 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Wednesday, Jan. 13 with Julica Hermann de la Fuente: Change, Part 1
• Wednesday, Jan. 20 with Julica Hermann de la Fuente: Change, Part 2
• Wednesday, Jan. 27 with Julica Hermann de la Fuente: Change, Part 3

The Give Get Sistet are our Artists in Residence for 2017/2018. They are collaborating with our worship team to create and curate several services throughout the year. They will join us in worship this Sunday, March 25 – services are at 9:30 and 11:15 a.m.

The Give Get Sistet is an improvisational chorus of women based in the Twin Cities with ties around the world. These women listen deeply and sing with great generosity and daring. First Universalist is honored to have these fine artists/community builders/activists in our midst.

On Wednesday, May 23, at 7 p.m., Give Get Sistet will be hosting a workshop on Afrocentric singing and composition with the choir and all other interested congregants. This will be an exciting opportunity to learn from master singers and cultural workers, and participate in creating a new song for our congregation to be performed on June 3 for Flower Communion.

Joining us in worship this Sunday, Jan. 21, is Give Get Sistet, our Artists in Residence for 2017-2018. They are collaborating with our worship team to create and curate several services throughout the year, as well as developing a community building project for the spring. The Give Get Sistet is an improvisational chorus of women based in the Twin Cities with ties around the world. These women listen deeply and sing with great generosity and daring. First Universalist is honored to have these fine artists/community builders/activists in our midst.

Learn more about this Sunday’s service here.

Joining us in worship this Sunday, Nov. 19, is Give Get Sistet, our Artists in Residence for 2017-2018. They are collaborating with our worship team to create and curate several services throughout the year, as well as developing a community building project for the spring. The Give Get Sistet is an improvisational chorus of women based in the Twin Cities with ties around the world. These women listen deeply and sing with great generosity and daring. First Universalist is honored to have these fine artists/community builders/activists in our midst.

Carnage The Executioner released a new video on YouTube yesterday as part of his series “Executioner Expressions” that features footage, audio and still images from worship at First Universalist Church on Sunday, July 10 – including portions from his performance as our musical guest and Rev. Elaine Aron Tenbrink’s sermon, “Choosing Hope.”

Falling just days after the death of Philando Castile, who was shot by police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, worship at First Universalist on July 10 created a space for people to reflect on and process recent racially-charged violence, and ultimately come away with a message of hope.

The video description from Carnage’s website reads:

“The present days are filled with death at the hands of Law Enforcement, heightened crime rates & racial divide. We are all in-need of self-reflection, increased hope & empathy if we are to prevent what appears to be the onset of an anarchy followed by Martial Law.

“Carnage The Executioner enlists the help of First Universalist Church Of Minneapolis to release the newest installment of Executioner Expressions – his in-debth & personal video series. Please watch & share the moving Hecasode #3 & keep hope in humanity that we can overcome these sour times.”