From Rev Eileen Wiviott – Senior Minister
Sometimes the only way to find a solution to a problem is by asking someone else for help. Another person, with a different perspective, can often think of things we just aren’t able to in moments of frustration. Try as we might when we’re stuck in a pickle, we need each other to help figure things out.
The other day I was given a small, rounded cube of lip balm after our presentation with Maureen Burns of the HAP Foundation. She offered a very helpful presentation on Advanced Directives, making our end of life wishes clear to our family and friends, and then she offered these little goodies with the HAP Foundation logo on it. I was delighted because I love lip balm. However, when I tried to pry open the tiny container, I was completely stymied. I tried to get my nail between the crease in the two halves and wedge them apart, but it wouldn’t budge. After several minutes of pulling, I thought I might stomp on it to break it open, but I realized that would destroy its precious contents. A cooler head prevailed, and I turned to my kid, Grey, for help. Before I could even finish the sentence, “Hey, can you imagine how this stupid container might op….” they had twisted it to reveal a perfectly round mound of soothing shea butter. Of course, TWIST!
You might notice that I often fixate on these small frustrations, these inconsequential puzzles. Perhaps it’s my way of avoiding the larger, unsolvable challenges. Life is filled with dilemmas, mysteries, and conundrums and we need each other to find our way through them. From loss and loneliness to the huge intractable issues of racism, injustice, and poverty, we need each other to be creative, imaginative, to find solutions, to help us to see a different way forward rather than beating our heads against the same walls over and over. You know that definition of insanity: doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
What are the bigger conundrums you get stuck in? What are the problems that keep you in the mindset of, “There is no possible way!!”? In those moments, we can try to remember to take a breath and be open to the possibility that someone else might see it differently. Someone else might intuit a new way forward. We are better, stronger, more creative, and more powerful together. Can we remind each other of that?
On January 21st, we’ll gather to envision a new way forward toward our shared commitment of anti-oppression and anti-racism. I hope you will join us at UCE for the Anti-Oppression Summit from 9-1pm. We have much work to do and a long way to go toward building the Beloved Community. We can only get there together.
And for those of you who asked, here’s a link to the article I mentioned on Sunday, “183 Ways the World Got Better in 2022”, filled with creative solutions to big problems.
With love and appreciation for all the ways you help me think, see, and act with openness and possibility.
Rev. Eileen