Midweek Faith Lift
“We Are Somebody!”
January 21, 2026
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
January 12, 2026
You want to mow the lawn, then you remember that your neighbor has your lawnmower. He’ll give it back when you return the sweater you borrowed from him. But you lost his sweater, and you have to replace it, but it’s made from the hair of a yak. And that’s how you find yourself in the middle of the night breaking into the zoo to shave a yak. It's then that you realize how interconnected you and your neighbor and the yak are. And how the cause and effect of your actions in these relationships brought you to his predawn moment in the zoo. As you shave the yak, you realize that you have to make better choices in order to participate in a life that wants to work for everyone, and in order to get your lawn mowed.
And for a little humor:
A man received in the mail a $300-traffic ticket for running a red light. It was one of those photo-tickets snapped by a camera on the traffic light. The fellow took a picture of three, $100 bills and mailed it to the county clerk’s office. He was still feeling smug about his clever response when he received another piece of mail from the clerk and, upon opening it, found a picture of a pair of handcuffs.
It’s okay if you have butterflies in your tummy. The trick is to get them to fly in formation.
Affirmative Prayer for Today: Infinite Spirit, loving Energy that holds us all, we open to grace, to that loving energy active in us, for us and as us as we embrace all the challenges of our present world. We acknowledge the Power of Wisdom and the Power of Understanding in us as we meet the demands of this day and time. Amen.
We are celebrating the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend. As we sit with the events of last weekend and the ongoing horror of what continues to happen in the Twin Cities, we pause and realize that we, too are in the predawn moment in the zoo, seeking the hair of a yak. We wonder, how did we get to this place, how did we allow this to happen. How did we not learn from history? How do we as a nation, as a people make better choices? We read further about King:
"When Martin Luther King said that ‘The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,’ he was diving deep into the desire for a new day. We are called to live this new day. Maya Angelou said, ‘If we learn from history, we do not have to re-live the mistakes that were made.’ If we face our history honestly, openly, and lovingly, a new day can be born." - Walter Brownridge, Episcopal priest
Well, that helps us just a bit! If we face our history openly and honestly and lovingly a new day can be born. Friends, that is both our collective history and our personal history. Facing it openly offers us freedom, but it takes courage and willingness and honesty to do it. One way Unity World Headquarters did that is to acknowledge that in the 1960’s Black Ministerial students were not allowed to live on campus. Back then, segregation was still a practice that was not questioned by those in power. That is what led Rev. Grace Mosely to establish the Detroit Unity Urban School to educate African American ministers. Since then, there have been so many Unity ministers who graduated from that program, including our current beloved CEO, Rev. Jim Blake. He has worked tirelessly to heal this harm. One of the houses on campus is now the Rev. Ruth Mosely cottage. Ministerial students from the Detroit program and all other programs go through L & O, graduation and ordination together. Truly a new day has been born.
On a personal level, we are challenged to face our own prejudices and deeply disguised beliefs about “other people” that we trip over in our quest for moral clarity. One of the strategies used to create a consciousness of persecution and hate is to take away the individual’s identity by lumping them together with a pejorative name. I don’t need to recite those names here, we are all very familiar with them. I am as liable for this as everyone else….in our human consciousness, we want to simplify what we see and we over-generalize in our so-called “opinions.” Ignorance and fear fuel this pattern, and we are seeing what that does to us as a people. It is not pretty and it is not sustainable. As Rev. King stated: "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."
Early in his career, Martin Luther King Jr. preached about the need to have three dimensions in our life: length, breadth, and height. Length is about our connection to ourselves. Breadth is about our connection to our community. And height is about our connection to the transcendent. If these three dimensions are out of whack, King said, we will be, too." - Pete Davis, Dedicated
The need to have the three dimensions in our life that King preached is a critical need at this point both collectively and individually because we are “out of whack!” We do need to have a deep connection to ourselves, to our inner life and our sacred humanness. It is only with that deep and “lengthy” connection and comprehension of who we are as sacred humans that we can cultivate the ability to truly observe and “see” ourselves with understanding, compassion and love.
In that consciousness, we can then really “see” and cultivate the dimension of “breadth” our connection to one another. There is no way we can ever step out of this interconnectedness much as we might try. Here is the way that Dr. King described it:
"All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality."
Jesus described it a bit differently, but it is essentially the same message. In Matthew 25, we are very familiar with the verses where Jesus says that whatever we do for the “least of these” we do for him and he continues to say that whatever we fail to do for the “least of these” we fail to do for him. We are interconnected and we cannot step out of that consciousness.
Finally, in this holy trinity of dimension we have height which is our connection to a transcendent “Being” or “Beingness.” This is our higher self, our Divine self what we call our Christ Consciousness. It is from the energy of this transcendence that we are able to embrace the capacity to forgive, especially what seems to be unforgivable. It is only in this energy of transcendence that we can see a larger perspective: that perfect love is doing its perfect work and it is not always pretty or easy. We don’t, in our human perspective always see how things are working together for good. Again, the words of Dr. King are relevant and inspiring: "He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love."
Forgiveness is the key to our power to love. That Truth applies to our own personal journey with our loved ones and ourselves. It also applies to our collective journey as a culture and a people and a nation. Forgiving ourselves for our failures to act. Forgiving ourselves for our blindness that did not want to truly see what was happening and how we contributed to our suffering and the suffering of others is part of how we are redeemed and made whole.
Only when we truly see the harm that has been caused and take responsibility for our part in it can we truly repair the situation, embrace one another, cry together and be made whole. That is a sacred moment and the tears are holy water. Those very human experiences break open our hearts to the larger, transcendent nature of our Divinity and the Divinity of all. As Dr. King said: "This Universe is not a tragic expression of meaningless chaos but a marvelous display of orderly cosmos." We do see and experience what seems like meaningless chaos in our world right now, but we pause and remember the bigger picture that we cannot see.
This is truly a walk of faith, a deep faith, a sustaining faith that is not easily rattled by outer conditions. It is the kind of faith that another hero of mine, John Lewis writes about on p. 71 in his book, Carry On.
Whenever the house of America is rocked or roiled by a problem or injustice, we have to join together as one, hold each other’s hands and have faith that our collective and conscious action will secure this part of the house for the moment and for the future. There are always storms. We have to walk in their direction. You see, marching itself is an act of faith.
So, dear ones, we walk in the direction of the storms, together, in faith with grace, peace and love. The energy of grace is always with us and allow us to mindfully choose our thoughts, words and actions. And Rev. King has the last word today: "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the one who wields it. It is a sword that heals."
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb