“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”
Psalm 133:1

Greetings, St. Philip’s UCC!

How good, indeed, it is to live together in unity! In a world with so many fractured lines running between groups of people, the widening breadth of those lines pushing and pulling people further and further apart, the joy of bridging those gaps, crossing those imaginary dividing lines, and coming together in all our differences and similarities is especially sweet!

As a new school year begins, a new program year emerges, and signs of a new fall season are in the air, the freshness of change and the excitement for new possibilities are all around us!

What if we were to embrace this September of possibility with a spirit of unity? Instead of just seeking more of the same, what if we also intentionally seek out some different? Different adventures, different routines, different practices, and different people. And what if we were to seek out those differences with the intentionality of unity?

Here’s the thing about unity: It isn’t the same as uniformity. Unity offers the opportunity to hold on to who you are, at the core of your being, and to find common ground (or at the very least a sense of respect and understanding) with what is different from you. Unity requires integrity — to truly be unified with others, we have to remain true to ourselves, and others have to remain true to themselves. The real fun begins when we try to figure out how to hold all those true (and different!) selves together. That’s unity in action — and it’s messy, and complicated, and beautiful, and challenging, and holy!

How can we find unity with those who are different from us, who look different from us, who dress differently from us, who eat different foods, who cheer for different sports teams, who read different books, who have different political beliefs, who have different religious beliefs, and who have different views about everything?

What could that look like? How do we begin?

Maybe, in this season of newness and possibility, what if instead of looking for new friends exclusively in our fractured corner of the world, we looked across the jagged lines of division and found some friends on the other side? Practice staying true to yourself, holding onto your integrity and sense of self, and seeking unity with someone who has a different understanding of the world. I wonder what good and pleasant possibilities might emerge when kindred (humanity, in all our diverse stripes) live together in unity — or even if we just begin to try?

Reaching across the lines,
Pastor Laura