Soulful Home What Does it Mean to be a Family Renewing Faith?

•

PDF file here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xii_Ohk6hX_JgVm6pQjUShU4_bfP5YlS/view?usp=sharing

Do you remember this part of Amanda Gorman’s poem, from President Joe Biden’s inauguration? 

For there is always light

If only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it

This quote resonated with many, many people in America, and indeed, all over the world. And I think it has special meaning to us as Unitarian Universalists. Culturally, and theologically, we UUs are more apt to think of faith not as being based on unquestioned belief, but rather on our direct observations that the world becomes better when people make it so. One important reason we learn, sing, serve, worship, and act in the world together as a people is that we are endeavoring to become a people worth having faith in. Another way to say this might be that we hope to be a beacon, a light, that helps goodness gather.

Your relationship with your faith community might feel a little more tenuous than usual these days. Perhaps your faith in yourself feels thin in places. Your faith in your fellow residents, maybe even all of humanity, might be a little worse for the wear, too. We’ve all been there, and many of us are right there, right now. 

This month, as a Soul Matters sharing circle of families, we’re bringing people to mind and heart who have helped us renew our faith in the past, and whose memory and example may have that power for us still. Our entire treasure hunt in Around the Neighborhood is designed to add names and observations to this wealth of worthiness, sending us on a daily search for kindnesses. And our monthly mantra has a DIY element to it, as we find lyrics–UU or otherwise–that we can recite when we need a little faith boost. And because renewing faith is such a big task in our current moment, our On the Porch section has a choice of two special activities to help you and your trusted friend or conversation partner to go together to that wide-open, vulnerable heart-space where faith lives.

May that be a journey that we all make this month!