Read the full issue of this week’s newsletter here.

In this week’s Liberal, Rev. Jen Crow writes: 

My heart is broken this week, and I imagine yours is, too. So much devastation, so much loss has come to our country and our world in these recent weeks. I find myself stunned some days, unable to take it all in. Violence shook us to the core this week in Las Vegas, with one man causing so much pain. Political maneuvers that have real consequences and communicate a lack of concern for everyone from the children of immigrants, to transgender people, to the people of Puerto Rico, line up in number week after week next to the seemingly never-ending natural disasters that continue to rock our earth and the people on it. And to top it all off, with each tragedy, we experience again the failure of moral leadership from so many of our elected leaders.

My heart is broken, and I am grateful for each and every one of you. As Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, President of our Unitarian Universalist Association, said this week in a letter of encouragement to clergy and leaders in Unitarian Universalism, “This is no time for a casual faith. The very real challenges and heartbreak of this time in this country and the world require a deep practice of our faith.”

This is the time to lean in to one another, and to lean in to the practices of our faith. Our commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person, our respect for the interdependent web of which we are a part, our faith that calls us to live into a love that holds no one outside of the circle, a love that lets no one go – these are just a few of the practices of our faith that can guide us in these difficult times. We must hold each other through our anger and pain and despair, and call one another forward in faith, trusting in love, hope, and compassion as our guides.

Rev. Frederick-Gray closed her letter with these words from Adrienne Rich and I share them here with you:

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:

so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those

who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power

reconstitute the world.

I am so grateful to be in this life, this church, and this faith with you. Let us cast our lots with one another and reconstitute this world.

In faith,

Rev. Jen