Imagination is the theme for worship in February. February is Black History Month and the month we kick off First Houston’s annual stewardship drive. Imagination is central to both.
First Houston’s initial founding minister was the Universalist circuit rider Quillen Hamilton Shinn. He inspired the people who started First Houston to create a congregation that preached that God loved everyone without exception. It was a bold vision in the 1890s and it remains a bold one today. It provided the spark that started this congregation, a congregation that has done so much to bring Unitarian Universalism to Houston and Fort Bend County. What might our imaginations and our generosity bring in the future?
It is not an easy question to answer. And it is not a question that we can answer by ourselves. Unitarian Universalist congregations provide us with a space to collectively struggle with the question and imagine how we might best answer it. They are unique places where we can both imagine a different world, encounter the spiritual resources necessary to create one, and then come together to work to build one. And that brings me directly to stewardship.
Stewardship is the act of sustaining the community across the generations. We give money and time–sometimes reframed as our talents and treasure–to First Houston because we know that it gives our lives more spiritual depth and increases our collective capacity to love the Hell out of the world. We give money and time to First Houston because we want to see it continue into the future. We have the congregation because previous generations sustained it so that it might be here for us. Which is to say, they imagined that the congregation would have a future and then they set about creating that future through their generosity.
The theme of our stewardship campaign is “Loving the Hell Out of the World.” The phrase comes from the Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford who was inspired by the theology of our Universalist ancestors. In the words of the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, “Our Universalists ancestors didn’t believe in hell, except for the ones we create here in this life. What would it mean to show up in the places where hell, where suffering and violence, persecution and inhumanity, prevail and to bring an active, powerful form of love that affirms dignity, liberation, and peace?” What would it mean, in other words, if we devoted ourselves to loving the Hell out of the world?
This brings me to the black radical imagination. Writing about the history of African American social movements, the historian Robin Kelley places what he calls the black radical imagination at the center of Black History. Over the course of last several hundred years, as people of color have resisted white supremacy, the black radical imagination has provided, in Kelley’s words, visions of “spaces where the energies of love and imagination are understood and respected as powerful social forces.” Such visions have been a crucial resource for building communities that are different in character and composition than the predominantly white and capitalist society that sustains white supremacy, is fueling the climate crisis and the global assault on democracy. Such visions are necessary if we are to devote ourselves to the great task of collective liberation.
Visions from the black radical imagination are one of the resources I look to when I attempt to imagine a future in which Hell has been loved out of the world. In Kelley’s words, it offers visions “of new social relationships, new ways of living and interacting, new attitudes toward work and leisure and community.” That is exactly what the world needs now and exactly what First Houston, at its very best, can offer. So, I hope you’ll join us throughout the month as we explore the imagination and begin our stewardship campaign.
Aiding us in our efforts this month are outstanding guest preachers. On February 9th Aisha Hauser will be returning to First Houston to preach “Leading with Love and Liberation.” And on February 16th we will be welcoming the Rev. Duncan Teague. He will be preaching on “‘Houston, We Have a Problem,’ When My Imagination Failed Me.”
During her time with us, Ms. Hauser will be leading two important workshops on February 8th. The morning’s workship will be on microagressions and the afternoon’s will be on bystander training. More information about both can be found on our website. I hope you can join us for both!
Sun Ra is a musician whose interstellar free form jazz invites listeners to imagine a universe where the destructive rules that govern our society have been overturned and hell has been loved out of the world. I offer a few of his words as my closing poem:
Imagination is a Magic carpet
Upon which we may soar
To distant lands and climes
And even go beyond the moon
To any in the sky
If we came from
nowhere here
Why can’t we go somewhere there?
love,
Colin
