Desert Notes April 17, 2025
We had a very busy week and weekend! Mid-week I attended a small prayer circle with leaders from our partner, Corazon AZ, reuniting with a shared vision of support for migrant communities in the Phoenix metro. Over the weekend I attended an event that my son Sol organized to create community and share resources with folks who are living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrom (EDS), Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and Epilepsy. It was a poetry and story-sharing session as well as a fundraiser for three organizations that help people with these. Sol shared his own journey with POTS and hopes to organize similar events in the future. He also attended, with 12 other youth, a Coming of Age overnight designed to help the COA youth create their own credo–representation of their current belief system.
I drove up to Prescott to spend the evening with our members and friends attending the Congregational Retreat. I enjoyed making a craft, eating dinner, leading an improvisational worship, and participating in an Un-talent show. We had a campfire and roasted marshmallows with many conversations. I slept in the cooler air and came home to lead service Sunday morning. We are hoping to get a much larger group of us up to Prescott next time! It’s a really great way to connect with each other, to de-stress, and to tend to our own spiritual needs. People of all ages came, people with kids and people whose kids are grown or who never had them or who haven’t crossed those bridges yet. People came with partners, good friends, and on their own. Even with just 15 hours up there, I felt a sense of equanimity that I definitely needed.
This week I am asking for folks to sign up for a small group conversation about our future and the resources we need to sustain our community. I know it’s a busy time of year–but we need to make some decisions together, and attending a conversation will help prepare you/us for the range of issues we need to consider.
A member asked me if I have ever shared my scripts from service so folks could go back and read. I said I could try doing that. I will talk to Worship Associates about whether it’s OK to share theirs, too. You can also go back and watch as you like, as well. Here are my words from the centering and my sermon from this Sunday (which is more or less what I actually said, lol). Caveat: I don’t create a script presuming it will be read as an academic document–I don’t have time. You can tell where the references are and what they are from. I write words that I know will be spoken and I sometimes say more than what is written or say it differently.
Something I was thinking about today as I walked my dog. I use the word “we” a lot in here but I think it’s important to say “I” for some of these. There were times I made mistakes and had to learn how to be a better ally, companion, accomplice, friend, partner, leader, follower. Sometimes these caused harm that was hard to undo, hard to remedy–and sometimes my own growth took time to catch up to do this work. Friends, this is still possible today and everyday. This is true for all humans! We can and do make mistakes/cause harm. While we need systems that hold us accountable, we also need to receive grace from one another and opportunities to make amends and to recognize growth and change. I am grateful that at least some of the time this was available to me, too.
Finally–new members! Your books came in and they are in the box outside my door. One per household! Everyone else–order yours: “Love at the Center: Unitarian Universalist Theologies,” edited by Sofia Betancourt.
—Rev. Sarah Oglesby-Dunegan