Ministerial Meditations
by The Rev. Connie Yost
January 12, 2015
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| The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama |
I recently saw the movie Selma, which was a moving and powerful experience. I urge you all to see it. It showed the courage and sacrifice that so many had to make in order to get their voices and concerns heard. It showed the power of people who organize, who persist, whose leaders struggle to make the right decisions and find the most effective tactics. Above all, it made me remember why I entered the ministry, why the struggle for justice and peace can never be abandoned to cynicism, despair and helplessness. We need each other in this struggle. We need a community where we can come together to work for justice, strengthen our faith and hope, and love and be loved. For me, that is what I find in my Unitarian Universalist community.
Unitarian Universalist's celebrate Community Ministry the first Sunday in February each year. Community Ministry extends our UU faith into the larger world, beyond the parish walls. Our ordained UU Community Ministers work as chaplains in the military, hospices, hospitals and other settings, in various social justice capacities, in the arts, in educational and institutional leadership. We are called to advocate for the sick, the poor, the oppressed. We are called to minister to all living beings and the Earth. We are called to dedicate our lives to the work of justice, peace and love. I am proud to be a UU Community Minister.
Sick and Tired
A sermon by The Rev. Connie Yost given on UU
Community Ministry Sunday February 1, 2009 at the UU Congregation of Salem,
Oregon
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| Bryant Grocery in Money, Mississippi |
It was August 24, 1955. It was a hot day in Money, Mississippi -- humid and sweltering. A group of black teenagers went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy some candy after picking cotton in the fields. One of them, a fourteen year old boy visiting from Chicago, whistled at white store owner Mrs. Bryant. A few days later Mr. Bryant and his half brother dragged the boy from his bed at his uncle's house, beat him brutally, shot him in the head, tied a cotton gin to his body with barbed wire, and threw him in the Tallahatchie River. His name was Emmett Till.
