Dear First Universalist Friends,
When the war broke out in Ukraine this winter, Rev. Andras, the minister of our Partner Church in Gyepes, Romania, and I began scheduling monthly calls with each other. These calls are a great source of joy and connection for both of us.
In the past months, we’ve discussed everything from the organizational polity of Romanian and Hungarian Unitarian Churches, to deep theological dives about Jesus and Easter, to European and American historical events, to silly anecdotes about our friends and families.
When Rev. Andras and I spoke this week, both of us were in a somber mood: the war continued to take a toll on lives and livelihoods in Eastern Europe, and gun-violence, racism, and political ire continued to weigh many of us down here in the US.
I asked Rev. Andras if he brought current events and politics into his sermons. He said these events and his own biases were always with him, but no, he lets Sunday worship be a time for congregants to connect with God and find the meaning they needed from within. “If I say something that gives them the meaning they have come looking for on Sunday,” he said, “then great, I’m glad, but it’s likely just by chance!”
For Rev. Andras, the work of meaning-making and finding hope in times like these is on all of us. The minister is there to hold the space, evoke the divine, and offer those gathered the opportunity to find a new way, explore a deeper meaning, and discover/re-discover a source of divine hope.
Such is the blessing and charge of our Unitarian Universalist faith, isn’t it?
Rev. Andras shared with me that he doesn’t really give long sermons anymore, just a few sentences and questions for congregants to ask themselves and turn over in their minds. Rather he has taken to offering long prayers, “prayers that are at least 10 minutes long with lots of silence,” he explained. In these prayers he can elude to the points of suffering in the world, but can leave space for people to feel the emotions, the hopes, the needs they may have been stifling or misdirecting through the week.
I know not all of us in our First U congregation believe in the power of prayer, but many of us do believe in the power of pausing.
And so with that, motivated by the wise ministry of Rev. Andras, I offer you, my friend, this prayer today:
May you pause today to explore your feelings and sensations,
The emotions that drive and motivate you,
The emotions that distract and prevent you,
The emotions that ask for or offer comfort,
The emotions that have been pleading with you to rest.
May you pause today to embrace the web of life,
Its’ tugs and tension,
Its’ slackenings and loose threads,
The steadiness of knowing you belong to and are a part of everything,
The openness of knowing nothing is set apart from you.
May you pause to engage an intention
An intention of love,
of justice,
of hope,
of peace.
Amen and onward, my friends.
Rev. Hillary
