This month’s theme is Heritage. Adults raised in the US grew up with stories of Christopher Columbus “discovering” America, which incidentally was already inhabited. Over the last decades, American historians and teachers have unraveled the conqueror’s story to include and wonder about wider and deeper perspectives. We who live in the United States benefit from its experiment with democracy; we also must learn the reality of the degradation and destruction of cultures and peoples who were here before us. Our heritage is all this: To be a living tradition, it needs us to learn from it all, in order to live not as clueless conquerors but as citizens co-responsible for creating justice, evolving democracy with a culture of compassion and equity, facing and responding to challenges of authoritarianism, racial injustice and climate change together.
For Americans who benefited from post-World War II stability, we do not carry the trauma of those who witnessed total destruction of their cultures, homes and families. Now is the time to use gifts of stability to learn to speak the truth about our heritage – the brutal and the visionary. And to help others finding their ways to future stability through truth telling and working together.
May we celebrate the many strands of heritage that weave us together, may we weave a legacy of welcoming, spiritual community, grounded in Love.
A good October to us all,
Rev.Mary
