the words below were written by victoria safford, a unitarian universalist minister in the USA. (these words were reformatted from an essay “the small work in the great work” which appears in a book entitled “the impossible will take a little while”.)
they are words of an elder, though i don’t know how many years of life experience she holds. they are words of strength, compassion and wisdom. they are words which can serve as a beacon of light on the darker days of this pandemic time. they are words to inspire our resilience, our authenticity, our kindness to ourselves and others.may they inspire you today.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope –
not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower;nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill on angry hinges(people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through);nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “everything is gonna be all right.”but a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling,
about your own soul first of all and its condition,the place of resistance and defiance,the piece of ground from which you see the worldboth as it is and as it could be,as it will be;
the place from which you glimpse not only struggle,but joy in the struggle.and we stand there, beckoning and calling,telling people what we are seeing,asking people what they see.