True liberation… requires denunciation of oppression, and then a further step, annunciation—telling what the future will be–regardless of whether the prediction comes true within our history or not. Telling what the future will be is an opportunity for us to dream. It is an opportunity to tap into the creative magic that happens when each person is encouraged and expected to be a creative agent. When the response creates a new community of love and justice, we become co-creators with the divine.
Patricia Jimenez
It is an exciting time to be part of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Monica! We are in the final stretch of developmental ministry and are preparing to search for our next settled minister. Our Leadership Development and Nominating Committee has nominated an excellent slate of candidates to lead this work, and we are all so grateful for their willingness to serve. Our Mission and Vision Team completed its assessment of our community, discerning its fundamental values and future trajectory, and we are beginning to craft that information into a renewed mission and vision statement to support our search process.
We are also wrapping up our This is the Moment! Stewardship Campaign in another season of financial uncertainty in our society, and we continue to encourage everyone to turn their pledge cards in to the office and perhaps consider making a special gift to support our investments in children, youth, and families, multigenerational religious education, and the ministerial search process.
We’ve been to many marches, protests, and rallies in recent weeks, and our community keeps showing up to side with Love and our UU Values amid an extraordinarily oppressive era in this nation. You are invited to help us imagine the future we want for ourselves and those who will follow us and to begin creating that future, here and now, with your presence, dreams, hard work, financial investments, and, most importantly, abundant love. You are a gift to this community, to this world, and you are loved.
Our Soul Matters theme-based questions on the theme of Living Love Through the Practice of Imagination this month include:
- What is your greatest act of imagination?
- Has your (or someone else’s) imagination ever led you astray?
- In your early adult life, who most helped you imagine possibilities of what you could become?
- Has age widened or narrowed your imagination?
- Are you someone who imagines everything that can go right or everything that can go wrong? Who in your life balances you out? Have you thanked them for that lately?
- What “imagined life” for yourself has been with you the longest? Might it be time to act on it or let parts of it go?
- What’s the most radical thing you can imagine doing before you die?
- Are you sure it’s not realistic to live that life you keep imagining?
- What gift did your childhood imaginary friend give you?
- Is there more to your “enemy” than what you’ve been imagining?
- What did your greatest failure of imagination teach you?
- If you could change how a friend or family member imagines themselves or the world, who would it be and how would you change their imaginings?
- Are you living out of your imagination or your history?
- How close is your current life to the life you imagined for yourself in early adulthood? How would that younger self feel about the life you are living now? Surprised? Proud? Confused? Curious?
Our Pastoral Care Team is available in these destabilizing and traumatic times in our wider world. They can provide short-term, confidential, non-judgmental spiritual companionship if you would find that helpful. Please reach out to us at pastoralcare@uusm.org.
As always, if you have a joy, sorrow, or milestone you’d like to share with the congregation in our weekly Thursday announcements and during the Joys and Sorrows sharing on a Sunday morning, please email joysandsorrows@uusm.org.
May you have a good Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month!
Yours in ministry and love,
Jeremiah
Rev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae
Developmental Minister
