“Beyond Human Scale” – October 20th, 2024

Rev. Sophia preaching, with Jean Gauthier, Djalai Babazadeh, Charlyn Bethell and Guy Urban.

Deep Listening requires a lot of courage and vulnerability. We will explore why this is and consider how its practice might just move us towards personal and collective healing.

Wisdom teaches us that in the face of overwhelm we must resist the urge to push or speed up and embrace the healing that is slowing down and resting. Slow down. Rest. Come to church.

Reading: “Because,” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So I can’t save the world—can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around every frightened child,
can’t foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who feel unlovable.

So I practice opening my heart right here in this room and being gentle with my insufficiency.
I practice walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love, I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth, about trust.
I want to invite compassion into every interaction.

One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big, I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear: to be ridiculously courageous in love.

To open the heart like a lilac in May, knowing freeze is possible and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world as if I were a puppy, adoring and unjaded, stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference, of anger, of cruelty, of fear, and stay open.
To love as if it matters, as if the world depends on it.