When we arrive at our Sunday Service next week, we shall have the Election of 2024 in our rear view mirror. Blue Hills Unitarian Universalists will pause to reflect on the results, with Arthur Thexton to lead us in asking “Can we be both religiously liberal and politically conservative?” We have to live together — what shall be our covenant in working to make our nation function peacefully? Our nation and state will continue to be politically polarized – how can religious liberals contribute to the political discussion without merely taking one side? What kind of spiritual discipline will this take?”
In the words of The Rev. Tom Schade: “Our religious commitments are challenges to what we believe and how we live. Our religious communities, both local and broader, are places where those challenges are brought home to us. I am regularly challenged by our religion about intimate details of my personal life. We are engaged, as a collective body, in thinking about how and what we eat, and whether our eating habits are consistent with our religious values. Surely, our political loyalties deserve the same level of self-examination.”
We are inextricably wedded to our fellow citizens in our large and diverse democracy, which is another way of saying that political conservativism is part of the interdependent web in which we all exist.
Blue Hills UU invites everyone to be with us for our services, beginning at 10 a.m. Sunday mornings in the fellowship hall at 230 W. Messenger St., Rice Lake, and on Zoom. The zoom link is sent to members, and anyone interested may request it by contacting patriciashifferd@gmail.com. https://bluehillsuu.org