Weekly Message from T. J.

Pieces Be with You

You know what I was missing this week? I was missing the annual holiday “tree” trimming we would do at the church. In some years, we’d have an ukulele choir playing carols while the magnificent bamboo/sheer fabric “tree” was strung with church-made ornaments. I still have one ornament someone gifted me that simply says “JOY” in scrabble letters. And another year, I helped the Compton children join in the string choir by holding the (mostly) correct chords on the autoharp while they strummed (mostly) to the rhythm of “Jingle Bells” and “Up on the Housetop.” I was missing that this week.

I know many of us are missing things, too. And maybe we are missing things much more important to us. We might be missing travel to be with our loved ones. We might be missing holiday parties and cookie exchanges. I had my first Zoom holiday party this week. It was charming, actually. The host hand-delivered (with a rubber-gloved hand) gifts to each of the guests that we opened during the party. It was both generous and fun. But like a lot of things, I don’t think it’s how I want holiday celebrations to continue for very much longer.

And yet there are still far more essential things that those around us are missing. Numbers reported today show that eight million more people have moved into what our civil society considers poverty during the pandemic. Of course the many economic lines that define this status do not tell the whole story. Millions more are suffering physically, psychically, and spiritually in ways and at depths unseen in many of our lifetimes. And though some measure of hope has crept into our society in the form of tiny, precious, freezing bottles of inoculation, recovery for many will be a long road.

A friend mentioned to me recently how often he’s heard people talk about “going back” or “getting back” to times in their lives they liked more. But we both discussed how many faiths and how much of science and philosophy tells us that “going back” is actually impossible (or at least vaguely hypothetical). So the best of what we know tells us that we only have this moment and a set of hopes in the moments that will follow this one. And I think a lot of us know that we will never go back fully to “how things were before.”

And so we are left perhaps with a better question: “What will matter more to me in the days ahead?” As we begin to take hold of some of the pieces of our lives that have been scattered, how will we form new ways of being together? What will we value more than we used to? I know for many of us, we will never take a hug for granted another day in our lives. For me, it might be years before I turn down a chance to gather in a group. But whatever you may hold, I pray that each one of us, in our own way, will once again piece together JOY, and hang it on the highest bough.

And may it ever be so,
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org