“Wherever you are on your journey,” the UCC slogan goes, “you are welcome here!” Although we might all be in different places on our individual journeys, we come together to live our mission: Sharing God’s Unconditional Love, Justice, and Extravagant Welcome!
What does it take to come together to live our mission? And how do we come alive while doing our mission? What is needed to share our mission? The answers to those questions are diverse as we ourselves are but there are three things which are at the core of every answer: It takes brains, heart, and courage on the journey.
While each one of those (brains, heart, and courage) are powerful in and of themselves, when brought together they come alive. Separately, they are incomplete.
If we are able to think but fail to have compassion and the ability to step forward when duty calls, we are settling to shadow images of what can become. If our heart breaks but we cannot think through the steps necessary to respond and do not act, we shall remain in the cocoon of tears. We can be brave all we want but if we don’t care and don’t plan, we will be just spinning in circles of bravado unable to accomplish anything.
Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray recently had a brilliant thought; She wrote, “The root word for courage comes from the French word coeur, meaning heart. Courage is heart strength – a fierce kind of love born from communities and faith that manifest deep care and connection.” I like that! Heart strength! Let’s use our brains and process that and apply our heart strength to come alive this week and beyond.
Do something that helps you come alive this week! Intentionally plan to use your heart courage in ways that live out our mission.
Shalom, Paul