The fall colors not only signal the change of season but begin to shift our attention toward the coming time of long dark. We anticipate the loss of light, and other losses are called to mind as well. Perhaps it is the news of the day that calls me into such a reflective and prayerful space.

The death of Congressman Elijah Cummings last night has me grieving, though I never met him. The tributes are flooding in:

“He was a good man…” That is how so many of the tributes begin. A good man who reached across the aisle in Washington. A good man who responded out of love. A good man, humble and embarrassed by honors he received. A good man who was relentless in the pursuit of justice but always looking for pathways to reconciliation and redemption.

A good man whose voice and whose good heart we will miss. I know that my sense of loss is deepened by the contrast of his presence with the deficit of decency in our national leadership. But I am choosing to focus on that good man, Elijah Cummings, rather than the toxic environment he worked so hard to correct.

I hope you will join me in holding Elijah Cummings in your heart today and holding his family and those closest to him in your prayers.

His goodness, his compassion and his commitment are a model that inspire us and remind us of what is worth fighting for and what we must refuse to lose.

Words from Leslie Takahashi:

“[Those who have died] are more than remembered, they are memory itself. For what we love lives on in the way our beloved dead accompany us through our life—their words and wisdom our guide, their humor our relief, their restless concern for the world our charge.”

Their restless concern for the world our charge.

Amen.

Bill

P.S. I will be preaching at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Vancouver, WA this Sunday. Many of you have thanked me for bringing strong female-identified voices to our pulpit this fall. One of the best ways to make that possible is for me to offer a “pulpit exchange” with those ministers. Kathryn Bert, the minister in Vancouver will be returning the favor in February. I will do the same type of exchange with Jennifer Nordstrom, from Milwaukee, WI, later in the winter. I will be back the final Sunday of this month when Patrice Curtis, one of our former interns, now serving the UU church in Clearwater, FL, will preach for us. I will be there to be Worship Assistant for her.