Then, trust.

“I ask Percy how I should live my life” by Mary Oliver

Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

Percy was Mary Oliver’s dog, with a dog’s way of trusting, letting go, and enjoying life. You can’t tell me my dogs don’t love me. I trust that they do. In fact, it’s one of the few things in life I know I can trust.

Between government shut downs, whiplashing temperatures, and daily investigations of wrongdoing, it’s hard to know who and what to trust. In times of uncertainty such as these, we need our community of faith, more than ever. We need to be able to put our trust in one another, to build relationships of trust, and with those relationships of trust, we must be able to put our values into action.

Covenant groups are circles of trust that deepen faith in one another over time. There are several groups at UCE looking for new members to join them. The groups meet once a month to practice deep listening and to explore meaningful topics; topics such as Trust – our February Soul Matters theme. If you are interested, contact Mary Shelden at msheldenuce@gmail.com and she can help you find the right group for you.

The Member Connections team is exploring the possibility of creating neighborhood circles by zip code as another way of building connection in our community. Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew the UCE members in your neighborhood? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could call on one another for a ride, or a meal, or cup of sugar now and then? Look for more information on that in the coming months.

Through connections of trust, we can organize our power to make a difference in our wider community and in our democracy. A few Sundays ago, Jesse Rojo of Community Renewal Society, spoke to a group of about 20 of us about how to coalesce our passions for justice into real, concrete actions toward policy change. The Social Justice Organizing Team is eager to work with folks, to build our capacity for advocacy, to talk to our elected representatives, and influence policy. If you’d like to join them, contact Dennis Wilson. We want our values of democracy, freedom, justice, equity, and environmental sustainability to be integrated into policies and laws. We can do that together, out of the relationships of trust we grow together in this church.

Amidst the uncertainty and the tenuous threads of our social fabric, let’s remember that it’s ever more important to have faith and trust in one another, as well as ourselves. We can make a difference together. We, too, can love, love, love…then give up our beating heart and trust.