Church of the Larger Fellowship UU Worship

The state of the world feels dire, so isn’t it time to get serious? Author Atena O. Danner talks about why cultivating pleasure in a time of depravity is among the most important things that people of conscience can do right now. Atena O. Danner is a cultural worker who imagines Black liberation, engaged in boundless curiosity. As a poet, singer, and visual artist, Atena’s work encompasses kitchen-table specificity and folk story relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. Atena is also a facilitator, a speaker and occasional worship designer/sermon giver in UU communities around the United States. As an organizer and activist, she has worked to incorporate struggles for justice into her life as a caregiver in a family of complex needs while also writing and publishing in journals, anthologies, and her own book of poetry: Incantations for Rest: Poems, Mediations & Other Magic, Skinner House Books' InSpirit 2021 volume. She is a Roots. Wounds. Words. fellow, an Anaphora Writers Residency fellow, an alum of the Hurston/Wright Writers Week and of Immersion Writers Africa. In their home north of Chicago, near the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires and of the Peoria, Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, Atena lives with her partner, pets and two free Black children. Her poetry collection, ‘Incantations for Rest’ was awarded a Nautilus Silver Award for poetry in 2023.

In this service, we’ll explore redemption through the lenses of abolition and harm reduction — not as a clean arc, but as a communal, messy, and ongoing process. We’ll look at how people and places dismissed by empire often carry profound wisdom about care, resilience, and transformation. In these overlooked spaces— in the world, in ourselves— grace becomes visible, and new paths toward collective liberation take root.

We will look to the ancient and current wisdom of the Haudenosaunee people as we nurture gratitude for each other and for the beings with whom we share this planet. We are reminded by this wisdom that all flourishing is mutual.

Currently, many of us are experiencing days that are darker due to the seasons of fall and winter. Typically, in these seasons there are numerous celebrations and observations that center the “return of the light.” This week, I ask us to reconsider our relationship to the dark as I assert that the dark is the place we find redemption.

If our faith teaches us that every person is inherently worthy, it means that no one is disposable. How does this change the way we gather, live, and advocate for justice? How does it change how we approach redemption and salvation?

It has been over two years since the start of the genocide in Gaza and the world has been grieving the continued loss of life and potential of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians. Together we will honor the lives lost and hold in our hearts prayers for an end to the horror and destruction.

Description: Job's wife is vilified for her anguished, irreverent response to tragedy in her household. But what if we listened more closely to her challenge? What if, instead of avoiding or ignoring the pain of loss, we allowed it to open a path to a fuller, more courageous faith? Reflection question: It has been said that a broken heart is an open heart tenderized to love even more deeply. What's breaking your heart in these times? What losses have you avoided grieving? What haven't you said to God for fear of rebuke? What support do you need to tell God the truth?

Often when we discuss grief, we are being encouraged to identify, acknowledge and/or accept the layers and cycles of grief that we are experiencing. But how do we engage this subject when we are the cause of another person’s grief? This week. I will share a story about a time when I was a source of grief.

The Rev. Meg Barnhouse once said, "I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, not every idea." In what ways can we lean into affirming each other and maintaining the humanity of all as we work to dismantle systems of harm.

Arundhati Roy, in her novel The God of Small Things, describes trauma, grief, and loss as leaving holes in the universe--shaped like the things we have lost. When we sew up those holes, we leave a mark behind even as we restore our fabric to wholeness. How do we honor those marks and help each other sew up our holes of grief?