November 8, 2024

For the second time this week I will ask: How are you doing? I truly want to know and am so glad so many of you have reached out. Bishop Loya wrote an email to the Minnesota clergy this week, and I'd like to share it with you:

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There’s a moment in the series Ted Lasso when the coach gives an epic post-game speech after a devastating loss. He says:

“This is a sad moment right here. For all of us. And there ain’t nothing I can say, standing in front of you right now, that can take that away. But please do me this favor, will you? Lift your heads up and look around this locker room. Yeah? Look at everybody else in here. And I want you to be grateful that you’re going through this sad moment with all these other folks. Because I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad, and that is being alone and being sad.”

 In these days after the election, many of us... are more than sad. We are angry, afraid, and deeply divided. Like Ted Lasso, none of us have words that can take any of that away. But it is true that there is something worse than being sad, angry, or afraid, and that is being those things alone....

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This week has been raw and tender and feels like it's been a month long. Maybe because I've gone through a month's worth of emotions, and maybe you have, too. We will have a gathering during our Adult Ed time this week to share and process and try to move through some of it together. We'll lean on Scripture, on ancient wisdom, and on one another. As I said on Wedneday, Jesus gave us work to do, and that work hasn't changed since last week. Our identity as people of God and Saint Annians hasn't changed either. But if we have some gunk to sort through before we're ready to pick that up again, that's ok. We'll sort together. Because ...there is something worse than being sad, angry, or afraid, and that is being those things alone....

My prayer for you this week is to know you are not alone.