Q: What do you do with an elastic trumpet
A: Play in a rubber band!
Adaptability. Pivoting. Elasticity. Resiliency.
The ongoing and sometimes relentless pace of change in the past few years has worn thin the possible synonyms to the point where all attempts to describe what is being asked of us each day is a clichéd response to future unknowns.
“Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it” Marlowe’s Mephistopheles told Dr. Faustus in the eponymous play. And that too may indicate the nature of where we are at in 2022. We are not yet on the other side of this once (hopefully) in a lifetime pandemic, and any attempt to analyze meaning and consequences is doomed to myopic limitations. We don’t yet have the capacity of perspective to allow us to really grasp what is still happening and affecting us.
Some things are verifiable and certain. Many people have died. Inequalities in services and impact have laid bare problems in our society that we were all to ready to ignore in the “normal” pre-Covid world. Stephen Stills once sang: “The rich keep getting richer and the rest of us just keep getting old.” In the world of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that seems truer now than ever.
But our covenant together in this church and in this faith tradition calls us to maintain our hope in a world that could be. Our adoption of an 8th principle last fall was an indication of a living and adaptive faith ready to continue to work for change. As Paula Cole Jones has written: “The prophetic church presents a vision that compels us to act.” That vision for UUs is of a world of justice without oppression. This is not a naïve optimism of a utopian fantasy world, but an active striving and aspiration towards a goal none of us will ever reach. To share one more quote, this time from Albert Einstein: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it nevertheless.”
Our trumpets are all elastic these days. They need to be. But they sound better when we use them together with each other. Welcome to the rubber band.
Yours in Service,
Tim