Danielle Garrett, Summer Minister

Dear ones, I know this has been another anxious week in what seems to be a string of anxious weeks. Violence and devastation continue in Gaza. Heat waves drive home the dangerous impacts of climate change. And political violence, during an already tense and perilous election for our democracy, has many of us feeling especially on edge. This is a time when we’ll need every one of the spiritual tools in our toolbox to stay centered, grounded, and hopeful. 

One way I try to find hope in dark times is by seeking out things that spark my “theological imagination.” As Unitarian Universalists, we believe that revelation isn’t sealed. This means there is more to the sacred than we know, and there is always a different way forward that we haven’t dreamed of yet. So when I feel stuck or hopeless, I look for the people who are carving windows and doors where there had only been walls. I look for the people who are expanding the definitions of the divine beyond what we had thought possible and dreaming outside of our limited binaries. 

Luckily, I don’t have to look very far this month. July is both Disability Pride Month, and the month when Portland celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride! And queer and disability theologians are some of my favorite sources for the kind of expansive reimagining I think is so important right now. For example, it was disabled theologian Nancy Eisland who suggested the radical notion that we could view God as disabled, specifically as a wheelchair user. Other theologians have then imagined God as deaf or autistic. How does it change our understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be in relationship with each other, and what it means to be “normal” if we imagine the sacred source of creation as fragile, interdependent and creating beauty and meaning from within (rather than despite of) limitations? How does that expand our view of what we’re capable of creating?

And it was a group of queer theologians from the organization Soulforce who reminded me of the beauty and mystery that exists between binaries. Sure, the Biblical account of creation says God created man and woman. But it also tells us that God created day and night, and none of us deny the beauty of twilight. It tells us God created the waters and dry land, but anyone who has kayaked through a swamp or watched waves crash onto a sandy beach knows the power of those in-between spaces. Why should we assume gender is any different?

Mind-blowing, right?!

Queer and Disabled theologians help me wonder what other possibilities I haven’t yet considered? What different ways might there be of looking at the world, and looking at the challenges we face that haven’t even occurred to me? We are a beautiful, diverse, and creative species, capable of imagining solutions to our most difficult problems if we can keep our minds and hearts expansive. 

So this week, enjoy Portland Pride with parades and parties. Work for disability justice and read about the incredible activists who fought for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law in July of 1990. But also celebrate pride by taking some time to dream. Ask new questions. Ask weird questions! Seek out voices from the margins and find out what they are dreaming about. Invite people to show up as their whole, authentic, divine selves and then stay open to the wisdom that might emerge when we make that kind of space.

We live in strange and difficult times, and we’re going to need to stretch our imaginations if we hope to meet this moment. I know that we can—because I make a habit of returning to those times and places where we already have. 

Keep dreaming, friends.