Guest Blog by Frances Loubere
I had not imagined, when I cautiously agreed to be a QUUF Board nominee, that I’d begin my tenure as a small square on a Zoom screen, in a time-warped 2020, with depleted QUUF staff and budget, and that these Zoom meetings would continue into a fraught and surreal future. Would I have volunteered had I known? I like to think so – but I may not have had the courage or confidence. I wonder if, by the end of my tenure, our Board will meet as holograms? For the record, I’d prefer being a hologram to a square!
B.P. (Before Pandemic) our Fellowship felt stable following all that stressful interim upheaval, with Kate joyfully installed as our minister. While the national election outcome loomed (still does) as potential horror, I didn’t imagine the preceding horror. With August, September, and October still ahead, I have nightmares about malign influence and/or brazen atrocity before November.
- I didn’t imagine that 2020 would become the year of a both a global Great Hiatus and a Great Acceleration.
- Or that a virulent pandemic would explode into death and economic devastation leaving so many vulnerable, including in our community and congregation.
- Can the mind-boggling, moral depravity of our U.S. leadership sink even further? Every time I imagine that it can’t, I’m proven wrong.
But:
- I didn’t imagine that this Great Hiatus would give Earth and her creatures, time to breathe.
- I didn’t foresee the uplifting acceleration of social justice protest – in the words of Representative John Lewis: “Good trouble.”
- Or that “white supremacy” would begin to transcend its divisive definition and become widely understood as systemic, cultural poison.
- Or that paradigms would topple along with statues.
- Or that Black Lives Matter cries for change would resound worldwide.
Living in our peaceful paradise, I’m clearly privileged, and yet my energy ebbs, my courage shakes, and my social justice heart hurts.
On a personal level, I’m struggling to adapt to our simultaneously paused yet on-steroids world, and to reckon with the careening pandemic combined with a very real rise of fascism – here, in the U.S.!
On a personal level, I grieve far-away family – now squares on a screen. Grandchildren in Sweden grow poignantly fast.
I worry about QUUF – our over-extended staff and congregants, and those in the wider community, who are challenged, fearful, and frayed. I worry about whether I have skills to help. But then I am a worrier!
I’m also increasingly confident, as I get to know my fellow, dedicated Board colleagues, that love and compassion will prevail. QUUF will be part of “Good Trouble” leading to a Great Shift and a better world.
We are paused on the edge of uncertainty, and the deeper unknown. Now, at the end of this July, I dare to imagine that 2020 will lead us to the brink of progressive transformation – and then my social justice heart will rejoice!
So well stated! Thanks so much Frances, for bringing your talent, skills and integrity to the QUUF Board.
Nice blog! Thanks for sharing and articulating what so many of us are feeling. Good to have you on the board!
Thank you, Frances, for this window into your soul, for being vulnerable yet strong. You speak eloquently for so many of us, our fears and hopes.
Thank you “Fellow Newbie” on the board! I too share your optimism and pessimism about this currently crazy world. I am optimistic that our QUUF board can and is facing into the challenges head on and that our Fellowship will remain strong (even while in little squares)
Lovely writing, Francis, and it all rings true. Better sailing ahead, I hope!
Thanks so much, Frances, for contributing to the ongoing conversation to keep our congregation connected during a time which you aptly describe as “simultaneously paused yet on-steroids world”. I share your confidence that we and our fellow congregants will find “Good Trouble” in the cause of social justice.
An articulate expression of how many of us feel and think. Thanks.
Thank you Frances for your deep and poetic thoughts on our situation, and the hope you share. I might have to read it again when I need a reminder to greet the wonders of all this uncertainty.
Dear Frances – Thank you for sharing your thoughts so beautifully. You are like a master carpenter – you always hit the nail on the head.
Good writing, Frances with an E.
from Frances also with an E
Frances thank you for both your words and your service. Here’s to Good Trouble – and lots of it!
Well said Frances. I am very glad you agreed to serve on the Board.
Your Worries are Our Worries. We are in it together, and your blog says so much. Thanks.
Frances: what a rich, deep, self-revealing, compassionate sharing. We are indeed lucky to have you on the Board, and to be part of our community.
Thank you so very much, Frances. You have so articulately put into words what so many of us are going through. Both thumbs up on this! May we be part of John Lewis’s “Good Trouble”.
Frances, thank you for publishing those thoughts and for agreeing to board service.
I share in the concerns you named as well as regularly noting the unexpected silver linings. In the spirit of Good Trouble – and better days ahead.