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The weeds stage a coup
Gretchen Haley describes misconduct as weeds that always return, no matter how diligently we work to root them out.
while i was away the weeds decided to stage a coup
across the rocks and plants and trees
where i’d spent whole days meticulously
digging out the thistle unwinding the bindweed
moving the rocks aside to get at each piece
of cheatgrass conspiring with
the rain the sun and my apparent negligence
they made an unruly revolution
like you they have never been good
at boundaries (Another Possibility, 6.20.19)
Lynn Ungar asks how we define “harm.”
I mean, there are things that I'm pretty clear fit the bill: physically hurting someone, sabotaging them at work, manipulating a person to push them into doing what you want against their will, these would all fall in that category for me.
What about saying offensive things? . . . Am I harmed by people who say a bunch of things that not only upset me personally, but I think actually make the world a worse place? (Facebook, 6.16.19)
Rife with the possibility of real transformation
Amidst the overload of Ministry Days and General Assembly preparation, David Miller hears a clear message.
[We] are in a period of deep change informed by years of unrealized hope, trauma to those on the margins and a shifting understanding of authority, power, control and who gets to say what is true.
We are in an uncharted place in Unitarian Universalism—scary, sure, messy, incredibly so, rife with the possibility of real transformation. . . Yes, I believe it is. (Facebook, 6.19.19)
Stefanie Etzbach-Dale writes that when we sense danger, it isn’t necessarily an overactive imagination.
It’s that we have evolved to focus automatically on what we fear. And that can easily lead to despair.
What I’ve learned is that, no matter our fears, we have the innate power to FOCUS our imagination on a much fuller range of possibilities, including “best possible outcomes.”
When we make that choice we move from surviving to thriving. (Facebook, 6.20.19)
Drawing on the example of the early Christians, Jake Morrill writes that when people feel powerless, they often turn on their “intimate enemies,” rather than larger, more distant sources of oppression.
The Left has a different vocabulary than the Right to denounce our friends as morally lost and covered in sin, but we are all human, all children of God, and it’s the same emotional process: in the shadow of Rome, we turn on each other. . . .
When we turn on each other, it’s not good for ourselves, or each other, or what we hope for our children. But it is good for someone. And that’s Pontius Pilate.
Rome likes when we fight. (Facebook, 6.15.19)
In the reaching
In the din of daily living, Tina Porter finds the God of her imagining.
You are in the hand
extended to the silly
white dog with the brown
patch around his left eyeAnd you are in the dog
with the brown patch
around his left eye,
looking at the person
extending the handAnd you are the person
reaching with and for
affectionAnd you are the distance
Between (Tina L. Porter, 6.14.19)