Somehow Sandy stays on task through whatever interruptions and distractions come her way. She knows what needs to get done and she makes it happen. You can count on it. She is a very effective office manager. Thank goodness! And then at noon her work day at UUFH ends. She relaxes, but first she checks in with each of us to say “see you tomorrow” or “have a good weekend” and to see if there is anything we need. She steps in the door with her I’m leaving smile and then the time often expands into a short visit or a moment of catching up. In yesterday’s transition, she shared the excitement of a friend’s new flower farm. Sandy’s friend grows, sells and arranges flowers. She ends up with flowers she doesn’t sell and ones that are left over after an event, but that are still fresh. So, she’d invited Sandy to join her and a few other friends to brainstorm how to get these flowers to people who couldn’t afford to buy them. She wanted to get together to find a way to spread more beauty and color in the world. She was bringing community, creativity and outreach into bloom.
I got excited just hearing about it and started brainstorming too. Within seconds Sandy and I were creating new connections with people and situations we could only imagine. It reminded me of how I felt as I walked in the Women’s March in Asheville, and how inarticulate good feelings settled in me and continue to affect me afterwards. There weren’t many particulars in the march for what to do—it hadn’t become that; perhaps it wasn’t really about that—yet. But it brought together and awakened; it grew energy to create and connect; it was an en-couragement, a strengthening of the heart in the face of repeated moments of dis-couragement. I marched and came away hopeful. Sandy’s friend marched and came away inspired and committed to distributing flowers to people who might want and not have access to a little more beauty in their lives. She didn’t just look outside herself for ideas, she also looked to her own love and generosity and sense of possibility—and she looked to her friends. She gave them power and made them count. This is how, environmental professor Mallory McDuff framed Hope and Action in a Creation Care service at sunset on Inauguration Friday, “annotation becomes animation.”
Many of us are searching for concrete actions that we can take to make a difference. I am too. It’s what we should do. As we search for things to do, we should not overlook or discount the energy of who we are and how we live. Sandy’s friend didn’t wait for action and community to find her, she grew them locally, with and through her friends, and with and through people she has yet to meet. If you want to think of it in the language of action, in so doing, she is fighting the forces that would keep us divided from each other and a shared vision of common good.
Now that I recognize such beauty and power, I’m noticing these groups forming all around and among us. They are like shared flowers. Yes, we will sustain each other and our commitment for love and justice, beauty, hope and joy. And in the process, we will be living what we want to be protecting.
Sandy knows that spending some time with each of us before she leaves for the day doesn’t get “the work” done. It’s not on the list, but it sure helps us all look forward to tomorrow when we begin again our efforts to make our Unitarian Universalist difference in the world, together. And that in itself is a beautiful and important thing.
— Rev. Jim McKinley, Minister