Pools of oil fascinated me as a child. I would watch for them on the pavement of parking lots – and stare at their rainbow rings and swirls. I knew they were beautiful; I didn’t look at them and see danger.
Anything in excess is dangerous except love.
And love is helping me to find comfort, as I witness the destruction of
the excess of oil that is spilling into our gulf.
I love this congregation, its members, friends and visitors. I love the
interconnection that lives in our relationships – how we reach for one
another when we are in need, how we are committed to nurturing all the
children that call our congregation home. I love this interconnection –
the bonds that bind us one to another in shared dependence. I love this
interconnection when it reminds me of our strength and our beauty, but
especially when it recalls me to my best self again, when I falter or go
astray.
It is so easy to place blame. This oil spill has me, has us, demanding
accountability, raging at those we call wrongdoers, whether they are
heading corporations or our nation. The interconnection that I love in
our congregation, begs me to reconsider my rage.
I look around and I see how we comprise a micro cosmos of the players in
the oil spill catastrophe. How some of our members are
environmentalists and animal activists, how some have homes or families
on the gulf coast, how some have traveled to New Orleans for rescue
efforts, how some own stock in the oil companies, how some work for oil
companies, how some work for companies that provide support to the
government agencies working to clean up the spill.
I realize this and I love this congregation even more – as it reminds me
again and again that this world is astoundingly complex and for that,
nothing is solved with easy solutions. Rage is easy. Love is difficult;
it is complex, and it is the only way we can move from pain to healing –
for ourselves, and for our precious world.
We need to love this world so much that we will give ourselves to the
task of healing – healing relationships broken by anger, healing animals
snared by a toxic spill, and healing communities by advocating for
compensation for those who will loose their livelihoods. But let us do
all of this– understanding that our interconnection is just as holy as
our call to justice… as justice rises from acts of love, just as
rainbows swirl in pools of oil… unexpected, astounding, beautiful.
