Message by Colleen Appel

Moment of Perspective – The 8th Principle – AJ Fox

Our opening words have been called “The Unseen Skeleton” and come from Isabelle Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. 

We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades, centuries even. Many people may rightly say, “I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.” And, yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now.

And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands.

Come and Go with Me
Words and music: African-American Spiritual, Slavery period, Arr. Kenny Smith; Permission Given by UUA
Accompanied by Eva Riebold with Live Congregational Singing

There is More Love Somewhere
African American Hymn
Performed by the First UU Choir and Eva Riebold
Public Domain

Our closing words are Forged by a Greater Courage by Rev Rebekah Savage

Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love,
We have gathered under the banner of a shared faith.
We are born of a welcoming grace that extends and receives love;
we are touched by the ways we have fallen short of who we strive to be;
and here we are reborn — forged by a greater courage.
Let us move from this place,
Encouraged and refreshed for the journey ahead.