Event: B2017 0623 Morning Devotional 800AM CST Captions Provided by: Hear Ink Http://www.hearink.com Phone: 314 427 1113 **********DISCLAIMER********** THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNEDITED ROUGH DRAFT TRANSLATION FROMN THE CART CAPTIONER'S OUTPUT FILE. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT VERBATIM AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. TO DO SO IS AN EXXTRA FEE. THIS FILE MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE SPEAKER(S) FOR ANY CLARIFICATION. THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU OBTAIN WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE OFFICE OR SERVICE DEPARTMENT THAT IS PROVIDING CART CAPTIONING TO YOU; FINALLY, THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE USED IN A COURT OF LAW. **********DISCLAIMER********** >> Holy God, precious one, prepare our hearts now for the feast of loving kindness we are about to receive. Let the words and music in which we are about to partake nourish us in all the ways we have needed. Let us be filled once again and made ready to be instruments, a feast forged by justice, in the work, play, and rest that's before us today with all that we are. Let us worship as one. >> Our musical artist, her music is borne of one soul mission to remind us of the wondrous magnificence of who we truly are. Marcy has been singing, leading chants, and speaking at spiritual centers around the country for 15 years. >> This is a song called The Strength of Love. I'm going to sing it once. I invite you to join in as you feel like you'd like to do that. And it will happen a few other times throughout the service. Here we go. I am born from, born from the strength of love I am born from, born from the strength of love All that I am today, all that I bring today, I know that it's enough Oh I am born from, born from the strength of love You are breathing, breathing the strength of love You are breathing, breathing the strength of love Here in this holy air, every thought is a prayer, may we be lifted up Oh you are breathing, breathing the strength of love We are blessing, blessing the strength of love We are blessing, blessing the strength of love And we all bring it forth today, sending it on its way, out to the stars above Oh we are blessing, blessing the strength of love [Applause] >> "Since I was invited to deliver this homily, a few months ago, I We have been hearing a lot about the election since this move. Resist Trump. Resist fascism. Resist authoritarianism. Resist corporate greed. Resist the destruction of this planet. Resist deportation. Resist the criminalization of black and brown bodies. Resist hate. Resist fear. How many of you have found yourselves participating these past months in some acts of resistance? Some mode of resistance? I want to tell you that that large and small scale political resistance, though, is only one kind. Resistance. If you are like me, you can see resistance in daily life as well. I resist things all the time. I resisted handing this homily in in April. [Laughter] Which made things very difficult for the team that was working with me. We resist things that inconvenience us. We resist things that make us uncomfortable. We resist things that are unfamiliar. We resist change. We have been experiencing some resistance here in this space as well. Perhaps you have been feeling it at home, approximate in your congregation, or your church or your fellowship. Resistance to how some talk about the holy. Resistance to how some worship. Resistance to the big one. The term white supremacy. Resistance to the sense, for some, that they are losing their place in their church. Once familiar and comfortable. Now foreign and challenging. And isn't that the story of our country today? For some, once familiar and comfortable. Now foreign and challenging. Sometimes we are resisting authoritarianism, fascism, corporate greed. Sometimes we are resisting our own discomfort, our own inconvenience. And sometimes when we are resisting, we are resisting change and progress and truth. Not all resistance is the same. Resist authoritarianism, yes. Resist a conversation about whiteness? And you are hearing a lot about this here this week, because it is so important. Not all resistance is the same. And so how do we know the difference? What I use as my guide and what I really want to talk about with you this morning is love. And I don't mean love juiced up on hormones. That is temporary. What I mean is revolutionary love. Some of you were at a conference with me, I know, a few weeks ago about revolutionary love. Love that is paired with power. Love that Audra Lord tells us is the partner of justice. Love as practice. Love as commitment. Love, revolutionary love for a revolutionary time. To put it another way, love is the act of connection. Love is a commitment to act in ways that honor and nurture our interdependence. Our interconnectedness. That network of mutuality that we so like to talk about. Love is the daily practice of acting in ways that create more space, more opportunities for not just ourselves, but for others. Love is a rejection of fear that pervades our society. Love is a rejection of the lie that difference is a threat. Love is a rejection of domination. Love is a rejection of the false comfort of safety. Bell Hooks invites us to consider that when we choose love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, find ourselves in the other. The practice of love, Hooks promises us, offers no place for safety. The practice of love, we risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control. So how do we know what resistance is worth engaging? How do we know what resistance is not simply reaction against discomfort and he know convenience? How do we know what resistance closes us off and what resistance opens us up? Resistance, I think, that is grounded in love and blossoming out of love, that is a resistance worth my time and my energy. Resistance that embolden he knows us to face fear. Resistance that courts courage over safety. Resistance by itself can steer us down a narrow street that we don't want to be on. Resistance, though, paired with love, born from love, resistance that pushes open doors, that builds up bridges, that knocks down walls, resistance born from love changes the entire world. >> Along with singing this first Verse, I'd invite you to join us, join the body of our team and these movements that they have come up with so beautifully. [Singing] >> Resist and rejoice. I will admit to you that he was a little surprised to encounter rejoice as a second part of our theme. In my experience, Unitarian Universalists don't really do a lot of rejoicing. We do a really good job with reflection. We have a few songs about joy. We teach our babies, enter, rejoice, and come in, and we sing it to a pep I upbeat melody. Joy, though, like love, is one of those things that I think we tend to get wrong. Not completely wrong, but not completely and wholly right either. Like love. Joy is not simply affect or feeling. Joy, too, is a choice. It is a commitment. Joy is a recognition and an acknowledgment of love, even in the face of suffering and despair. The theologian Barbara Holmes tells us that: Joy unspeakable is not silent. It moans, hums, bends to the rhythm of a dancing universe. It is a fractal of transcendent hope A hologram of God's heart A black hole of knowing. Joy you know speakable for our free African ancestors is a drum talk That invites the spirits to dance with us And tell tall tales by the fire. For the desert Mothers and Fathers Joy unspeakable is respite From the maddening crowds And freedom from "church" as usual And so when we rejoice, we give expression to our joy, even the joy that is unspeakable, especially the joy that is unspeakable. The your that is twirling around us, writhing, moaning, humming, dancing, drumming with sadness and grief and sometimes anger. If you had occasion to walk yesterday by the black healing space, you may have heard our rejoicing, our singing and rocking and swaying, clapping and humming and moaning, even in the face of our sadness and despair. Our anger and our grief. Rejoicing opens up a space for healing and for strength. It makes bearable the hurt and loss and pain that comes with love. Rejoicing is what gets he is through the suffering to the other side. We sing out even if we are out of tune, even if we can't let the note, even if we don't know all of the words. . We sing out and our voices merge with the voices of others and we create something that is like magic, rejoicing is giving ourselves over to be lifted up by a faith in something beyond ourselves, a faith in God or a faith in the past and the future. A faith in each other. A faith in love. To rejoice is to enter into a collective celebration. A collective effervescence that magnifies itself. That creates something entirely new. What we rejoice, we are birthing the strength of love that is enough, enough to hold the entire world. When we rejoice, we are breathing the strength of love that lifts us up and carries us on. When we rejoice together, we are blessing the strength of love, bringing it forth and sending it on its way. >> You are breathing the strength of love. [Singing] >> Friends, let us pray. We acknowledge this morning we have sometimes fallen short of our highest calling to love with abandon. In our anxiety and in our fear, we've sometimes chosen the smooth pathways of expediency over the rugged road that would lease us all to justice. In these times, in this moment, help us find the courage we need to simply be wholehearted practitioners of the love in fact heal the world. Help us to be has had I Cal not only in word, but in our daily deeds, testifying to the trust we have in that nonviolent, cooperative, interweaving, upholding, remaking, gentle, powerful breath of life. At the heart of all things. And let our lives in the end leave a resonating echo of the song whose Verses are justice and whose chorus is love. All this we pray in thy holy name, amen. >> We are blessing, blessing the strength of love. **********DISCLAIMER********** THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNEDITED ROUGH DRAFT TRANSLATION FROMN THE CART CAPTIONER'S OUTPUT FILE. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT VERBATIM AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. TO DO SO IS AN EXXTRA FEE. THIS FILE MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE SPEAKER(S) FOR ANY CLARIFICATION. THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU OBTAIN WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE OFFICE OR SERVICE DEPARTMENT THAT IS PROVIDING CART CAPTIONING TO YOU; FINALLY, THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE USED IN A COURT OF LAW. **********DISCLAIMER********** Event: B2017 0623 Morning Devotional 800AM CST Captions Provided by: Hear Ink Http://www.hearink.com Phone: 314 427 1113