A Rev. Bill Commentary: Bracing for the New Year

Donald Trump was named “Person of The Year” for 2016 by Time Magazine.  I would counter that by naming the KVUUC Newsletter’s “Person(s) of the Year.”  The winner is the 10,000 Water Protectors who gathered at Standing Rock, North Dakota.  You see our editorial Board takes into account more than the amount of ink spilled; we also consider impact upon the common good.

The Water Protectors exhibited enormous courage and commitment as they withstood withering hardship and oppression.  They stood in support of Native peoples seeking to protect their water sources and sacred lands.  They stood against the fossil fuel industry.   Their commitment to nonviolence was and is inspiring, hopeful and a modeling of the best of the human spirit in solidarity with a sense of beloved community and caring for our Earth.  I am proud that Unitarian Universalist clergy and laity had a prominent presence among the Water Protectors.

For the time being it appears that the protesters have succeeded in disrupting the planned pipeline.  Yet, we are on the cusp of the impending Trump presidency.  The epic drama of Standing Rock is not likely over and may become just one among scores of confrontations between the militarized forces of power and nonviolent resisters.  I struggle to imagine how to prepare myself for the potential disasters that seem looming in 2017.

For those whose spirits are similarly challenged I offer these words of comfort and resolve.  One of our ministers wrote it, Rev. Audette Fulbright Fulson, who serves in Wyoming.

Did you rise this morning, broken and hung over with weariness and pain and rage tattered from waving too long in a brutal wind? Get up, child. Pull your bones upright gather your skin and muscle into a patch of sun. Draw breath deep into your lungs; you will need it for another day calls to you. I know you ache. I know you wish the work were done and you, with everyone you have ever loved were on a distant shore; safe, and unafraid. But remember this, tired as you are: you are not alone. Here and here and here also there are others weeping and rising and gathering their courage. You belong to them and they to you and together, we will break through and bend the arc of justice all the way down into our lives.

Rev. Bill