This is likely the beginning of a 3-4 part post on my last
week. Honestly, I have so much I need to
do right now -- write notes for work that are due tomorrow. Go grocery shopping since I have no food in
the house. Figure out some specifics of
what I'm teaching this fall because I'm meeting with someone about it this afternoon
and should probably try to look like I know what I'm doing (spoiler alert: I
don't). I've been gone since Wednesday
morning and didn't get back until 11:30 last night, at which point I pretty
much just fell into bed. This transition
back to Normal Life is feeling a bit like somebody pushing me into the deep
end, even as I try to resist. Just a couple more minutes, I'm
countering. Just a couple more minutes to sit with and discover and unpack and
relish this new, tender being that was birthed inside me this weekend. Just a little while longer to nurture her
quietly and get to know her more fully before we try to enter the world
together.
General Assembly (GA) is the annual meeting of the Unitarian
Universalist Association (UUA). From
business meetings to workshops to worship services and repelling over the sides
of buildings...from discussions about justice and ministry and feminism and
equality to composting and gender-neutral bathrooms....from music and singing
and community to quiet moments of prayer, reflection, and meditation, GA has it
all. I never could have imagined how much of "it all" GA has,
actually. Being only one person, I
experienced only a tiny portion of what GA has to offer, and it was huge. Too big for words. Too much to put on a piece of paper, even,
because I can barely embody it all in my three-dimensional flesh. In fact, I may still burst open. It's like I can feel my soul pushing at the
edges of my skin, begging for more room.
The love and wonder and amazement I soaked in through being there is
filling me so much, it almost hurts as it tries to escape from my body and make
its way into the world.
There are so many ways I could write this, and none of them are
feeling "right." I suppose I
could start with Wednesday evening worship and write my way through Sunday
morning. I could write about each of the
workshops and services and meetings I attended. I could tell you about how
mind-blowing it was to see our faith, which I had only ever considered in terms
of individual congregations, in the context of a larger denomination. I could write about watching the democratic
process unfold, or about the power of worshipping with 4,600 people. I could tell you about the simultaneously humbling,
overwhelming, and empowering experience of understanding that I have a huge
community I can call upon, lean on, and draw from in the justice work I want to
do. I could ramble for hours about what
it feels like to have a community behind me that will stand with and behind me,
that believe in love and justice, and that truly attempt to live their love in
ways I did not know was possible. I
could go through each of our 7 principles and tell you how I saw them each
lived into action this weekend. Or
honestly, I could just sit here and write as many synonyms for awesome and
inspiring and humbling and energizing as I can generate.
And perhaps I will.
Perhaps I will blog about nothing but GA for the next 3 months. Goodness knows I'd have more than enough to
write about. But there are two things I
learned about most: the power and necessity of personal stories, and love. So this is where I'm starting, in the
knowledge that I'll write more later. I'm
starting with my story about love.
When I told someone close to me that I was going to GA, her
response was this: "why would your minister want you to go to something
like this?" and "those people must really like you. What have you done to make people over there
like you so much?"
These questions stung.
There aren't answers for them really, and the only answers I could find
were "I dunno" and "nothing." This type of thinking seeps into your
consciousness, even if you aren't good at it on your own. I don't want to brag, but I actually happen
to be an expert at this type of thinking.
What do you think you're doing?
I asked myself. What can you possibly gain from this that will benefit anyone but
yourself?
All the way to Rhode Island, I kept asking myself those
questions. What do you think you're doing?
Who do you think you are? I
felt unsure. This thinking was no fault
of anyone but my own brain -- but I couldn't reconcile it with myself. Sure, I'm doing some work in Reproductive
Justice within the congregation. Sure, I
consider my faith to be an essential piece of who I am. Sure, I have ideas about expanding our
congregation's acceptance and awareness of people with disabilities...but who did
I think I was going to a big event like this, voting on denominational
issues, being part of this larger community?
After arriving in Providence on Wednesday, as I walked out
of worship that evening, something in me had changed. The question had changed. It felt as though something had physically
changed inside of me. A door was unlocked,
perhaps, and something hidden and precious was exposed. The question instead was this: how did you get here?
A year ago, I only attended my congregation
sporadically. I knew almost no one. For nearly two years, I struggled to attend
services. I saw this vibrant community,
and I did not see a way into it. I
believed I was unworthy of being part of it.
I believed I was too broken to join that space. I worked hard to sit through the sermon and
slip out quietly and unobserved. I got
to be an expert at that, too.
The theme for this year's GA was "Love Reaches
Out." This theme was reflected in
the worship services, in the workshops, in the justice work that is being done,
in the hearts of the strangers and friends there with me. Love does reach out. Love is reaching out. We are working to reach out in love.
And that, although I could not name it before, is the answer
to my question. I got to the place where
I am now because love reached out. I got
here because I was seen. I was treated
as though I mattered. I was given a
space at the table of worth and mattering I thought I had been banished from,
and I was permitted to come to that table in any way I was able. Love reached out. And it mattered.
Part of the pain of the past several years has been this shame-filled
place where worthiness feels elusive: I knew I was capable of so much more, and
yet was unable to access that person. I
felt betrayed not only by community and people and life, but also by
myself. I could not reach out in love
and be the person I know I am because I did not trust that my light would be
seen as valuable. I did not trust it
would be protected. I did not trust it
would be seen as precious. I could not
reach out to love and community, because recent history had told me my light
might be snuffed if I did so. My light
might be blown out, or stepped on, or taken from me.
But here's the thing: love
reached out anyway. Without
expectation, love reached out. My love
reached out in return, and it was seen. It was honored. It mattered.
When we reach out in love, it matters.
When we allow others to love us, it matters. When we honor and name what is precious in
one another, it matters. When we do
nothing except speak in a way that shows others they have a seat at the table,
it matters. When we do the hard work of
walking our talk on issues others hold close to their hearts, it matters. When we engage in large-scale justice work on
big issues that infuriate and sadden us, it matters. When we listen to just one story, shake one
hand, give one hug, it matters. When
love reaches out, it always matters. I
know. In the deepest place in my soul
where these damn tears keep falling from, I know.
There were several speakers who referenced being saved by Unitarian
Universalism. On the one hand, I have a
hard time swallowing that language.
Being "saved" is language that seems to already have been
cornered by other faiths, and it conjures images that just don't fit for me. But I do know this: while Unitarian
Universalism might not have "saved" me, Unitarian Universalists
almost certainly have. When I was in
graduate school, living in another state, attending another congregation, it
was the UUs there who kept me afloat. That
group of people reminded me that there is still good in the world. I have this
small group of amazing people, I told myself, and they are good. As things in
my world are crumbling, they are still good.
And then I moved.
Even though people told me "you will find more good people. You will find more UUs," I didn't
believe them. I thought that, maybe, I
had found some little pocket anomaly of good folks who were willing to love me
in spite of my brokenness.
It took me a while. A long while. As I started to grow in community, I thought, ahh. I
have found another pocket of good people.
How fortunate I am to find another little cluster of good folks. Every time I found another person who
reached out in love, I experienced unimaginable gratitude. How can
I possibly be so lucky?
During our worship service on Saturday evening, though, I
got it. Not just an "oh yeah!"
type of got it. Not an "I get it!"
type of got it. Not even an "oh my
god, holy cow" type of got it. This
was a run-over-by-a-train type of got
it. A can't-catch-my-breath type of got it. A descent-into-weeping-in-the-middle-of-worship
type of got it. I, who never cry, just
could not stop crying these tears of gratitude and sadness and overwhelm.
When we say "love reaches out," I realized, we
weren't just talking about reaching out to the world. We weren't just talking about our justice
work and activism and reaching out to marginalized communities. We weren't just talking about loving
"people." It wasn't just about
others. This love could also be for me. This white, privileged, cis-gender
woman? I could need that love, too. I could receive that love, too. My feelings of brokenness are unique, as all
of ours are, but also rather universal.
And that love -- that love being generated around me -- it could also be
for that broken place in me. It could start to
heal me.
In an arena with 4,600 people, that's a lot of love,
y'all. When that realization hit me, and
that love came pouring in...I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't sing or think or do anything but sit there, and cry, and let
it happen.
I realized, finally, that these pockets of a few handfuls of
"good people" were not anomalies.
They were not this weird phenomenon I was lucky enough to happen
upon. I realized that in that
arena alone, there were 4,600 people who were also Love People. 4,600 people who were trying to live and love
reaching out in the only way any of us know how: imperfectly. Faultily.
Beautifully. I understood that,
as I do my "work" -- be that the work towards Reproductive Justice or
disability rights, towards being a person who reaches out in love, or towards
being a person who is healing her own brokenness, I am joined by people all
over the globe who are doing that same work.
I am joined by people who have that same set of 7 principles guiding
them, who sit in their similar-or different-communities, and sing the same
hymns, go through the same rituals, with the goal of reaching out to all of us in love. Even as we are hurt. Even as we and our loved ones and our world
suffer great and horrific losses of faith, friendship, self, and even love. Even as we hear about and experience tragedies
and injustices and things that can never be made right. Even as we experience and witness pain we did
not know was possible, love reaches out.
In ways I forgot I could experience.
In ways I did not remember I deserved.
In ways I did not even know existed, love for you -- for me -- for all of us --
is always and forever reaching out.
So may it ever be.
Amen.
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