Minister’s Column

We received an unexpected package this week. I saw the post office notice in the mailbox on my weekly visit to the Fellowship building and Terrie Robbie, our treasurer, picked it up. It was a cardboard tube addressed to UU Fellowship of Central Michigan from an address in Minnesota, and it sat unopened on the desk for a couple of days. There is enough fear in me, and enough public reporting of packages that contain explosives or poison, that I was hesitant in opening the package. Faith and curiosity overcame fear, and I opened the tube.
 
Inside was the following note:

Hi Folks,
My son and I are Unitarians from Minnesota (WBUUC). We were looking for ways to work on social justice issues as well as get out the vote campaigns. We are artists with a 44” printer. We are donating our time and resources to help educate and motivate folks into action.

Please accept these as a gift with hopes of a better and brighter future for all. If you have a need for more, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
​
Respectfully,
Larry and Sean LaBonte / St. Paul, MN

The gift of these UU artists was half a dozen full-size full-color posters, with messages on voting, wearing masks, climate change, and more. They are at the Fellowship now and I am figuring out how to display them. They might fit on our outdoor sign, which hasn’t been used since the pandemic started.

​Rev. Mariela Perez-Simons, minister of Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, spoke at a conference for UU ministers this summer. She named this moment we are living in as a time of revolution. Transcending the election before us, humanity is at a revolutionary point in how we treat one another and the environment. Her call to action is for each of us to find our place in the revolution. To succeed in this revolution and put love over hate, community over individualism, and planet over profit, everyone is needed: healers, politicians, nonviolent warriors, teachers.

And the role of the artist, she said, is to make the revolution irresistible.
​(This is a quote from Toni Cade Bambara.)
 
I’m grateful to our UU brethren Larry and Sean for sending the gift of their artwork in faith to our UU fellowship. These posters are tools of the revolution. May we all find our place and move forward in doing the work.
 
Prayer:
Spirit of Life and Love, may we be united in this revolutionary moment. May the marchers with their Black Lives Matter banners, and the musicians recording their songs on YouTube, and the strategists planning to mobilize and protect voters be united.
 
May we have the vision to see beyond a single election to the deep goals of unity and love and harmony that we are striving for. May we be connected as we move forward with these goals in mind.
 
Blessed be.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz