By Rev. Jane Smith at Channing Memorial Church

To take these narratives of fear or distain and instead re-shape these single stories into complex stories of faith, culture, abuse, and love. To connect with our own faith of Unitarian Universalism and see the inherent worth in each and every person. To connect with our Universalist roots, a people of faith who understood each person to be loved by God and saved to heaven. Let us connect to the Unitarians whose faith called them to see the intrinsic goodness in each person. To see the complexity of a life-giving narrative, instead of the simple, easily digestible, single-stories we are each surrounded with.

Both of these religious beliefs and our own understandings of Unitarian Universalist values imply an inherent interconnectedness of nature and all life. Ursula Goodenough writes that this connectedness is in a sense a religion in itself – the sacredness of this web. That we are not connected merely by the food chain or by the balance of our ecosystems but also of a common ancestor

In the Christian story, this man who embodied faith and love had such an enormous capacity for hope that not even through torture, not even through death, could this be deterred. Even after death hope was resurrected – transcending life, transcending this mortal world. As he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven so too was hope reborn, so too did promise rise.