Get in a Boat – Or, What Unitarian Universalism Says to Our Suffering

Everyone who is alive will suffer in some measure, and every faith tradition speaks to this reality in some way. For Unitarian Universalists, we don’t turn away from or sugarcoat the reality that life can be hard, nor do we look to supernatural deliverance or assume that it’s all part of some larger grand design. As Unitarian Universalists, we know that life has its measure of pain, but that we need not suffer alone—that pain is held most effectively in community, and that when we join together, not only can we hold more, but we can transform our individual suffering into collective action for justice to transform the systems that create our suffering in the first place. In other words, our pain is borne through community and collective work to create the beloved community here and now. This month, we’ll dig into what our faith says in the face of human suffering, and offer concrete pathways toward building practices of mutuality and care for the world.