Our “Impossible Times” by Adrienne Maree Brown

we are living in impossible times. if it were fiction it would be critiqued as hyperbolic. if it were nightmares we would never sleep.

we are living in times created by our own species. i can’t remember the last time my tears weren’t man-made.

it feels like everything is broken. we must, each of us, fix our attention on the nearest wound, conjure within us the smallest parts of ourselves that are still whole, and be healers. heal with words and prayer and energy, heal with money, clean water, time and action.

there’s enough destruction. there’s enough nothingness swallowing the living world. don’t add to it. there’s enough.

our visions are ropes through the devastation. look further ahead, like our ancestors did, look further. extend, hold on, pull, evolve.

(This poem was the focus of the Unitarian-Universalist sermon today at Countryside UU Church in Palatine, Illinois, where I am a member. It is so apropos to our lives right now, especially with what is happening in Ukraine. So that’s why I wanted to share it with you, dear readers.)