The Rev. Dr. Craig Rubano
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake…
there is a small opening into the new day….
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be,
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches…?
— David Whyte (“What to Remember When Waking”)
(complete poem: https://www.stevenkharper.com/whattorememberwhenwaking.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist)
We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many….All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that…our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.
— Mary Oliver (“Of the Empire”)
(complete poem: https://redtreetimes.com/2025/01/24/of-the-empire-mary-oliver/)
I haven’t given up on humans yet.
Though here in America where masked agents
pull women and men from their homes….
In second grade, I remember making forts
at recess with small snow balls…
to create a small home.
And then, maybe every time, when
the recess bell rang, a group of boys
would linger and at the last moment
they would kick our snow walls down….
It is in all of us, the bully, the one
who enjoys destruction….
But it is also in us all to speak out
for each other, to stand up for each other…
to gather the way we did in second grade
with our small mittened hands, going out
the next recess, and the next, and the next,
to build together again. Because we can.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (“Building the World We Believe In”)
(full poem: https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2026/01/07/building-the-world-we-believe-in/)
In honor of April being National Poetry Month, I offer three poems, above, that capture our monthly congregational theme of “Embracing Possibility.” Since this is the month I travel to Mexico (along with some personal study leave time), I offer these poems so that, during the weeks I am away, you might gather together for Tea Time and discuss and share amongst yourselves. Or, at least you’ll have three beautiful poems to contemplate: each day offers us “urgencies,” as David Whyte suggests, that draw us toward that which centers love, and that waters the seeds in our souls; each day gives us the opportunity to turn away from what Mary Oliver calls a death-fearing culture, and to open our mean hearts to life, toward caring for one another; and each day summons us away from our inner bully selves and toward building, together, what Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer calls “the world we believe in.” Each day, there are possibilities available to us if we decide to embrace them.
While I am in Mexico, I will meet with the two social justice nonprofits with whom we have partnered these past two years: 1. Caminos de agua (Waterways), which provides technologies to strip toxic arsenic and fluoride from the water in villages throughout the area where volcanic aquafers leach the chemicals into the supply; and 2. Libros para todos (Books for All), which puts new books into the hands of children who have never owned one, prepares teachers to instruct the kids how to read the books, and brings the book’s authors to the schools for discussion. Two phenomenal organizations that we reach through our collaboration with the UU Fellowship of San Miguel de Allende’s Social Justice Foundation. If you’d like to donate, just click here, use the drop down menu to find Caminos and Libros, and make sure to identify UUCMC as your congregation: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=FQRA3W95N7676&sdkMeta=eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5wYXlwYWxvYmplY3RzLmNvbS9kb25hdGUvc2RrL2RvbmF0ZS1zZGsuanMiLCJhdHRycyI6eyJkYXRhLXVpZCI6InVpZF9wb2t1aW9tbmJnc293cGhpc2F1Z2VianVpb21iamsifX0&targetMeta=eyJ6b2lkVmVyc2lvbiI6IjlfMF81OCIsInRhcmdldCI6IkRPTkFURSIsInNka1ZlcnNpb24iOiIwLjkuMCJ9.
While there, I will be doing a concert to benefit both the excellent Chorale San Miguel, a combination Mexican-Foreign National choir presenting classical choral pieces (including world premieres), and Casa Europa, an association established to be an open space for all manifestations of fine arts. It will be a busy time for me, as I will also be the guest minister at the Fellowship, heading the Sunday worship service. Additionally, I will be making a visit to another worthy cause with which we can work, which I will tell you about when I get back!
We begin the month on April 5th with a multigenerational worship service honoring two of the most important religious holidays of the year, with Passover’s story of a people traveling away from the Egypts that bind them and toward a new freedom to be themselves, and Easter’s heralding the birth of a newly conceived Love that will not let us go, a love that goes beyond the terrestrial, beyond the life cycle. What a great way to begin to imagine new embraceable possibilities! The rest of the month, you will have excellent worship service opportunities: to connect with social justice causes in New Jersey when the head of UU Faith Action NJ, the Rev. Charles Loflin, joins us on the 12th; to connect with the environment on the 19th for a special Earth Day service led by founder of Save Coastal Wildlife, Jenna Reynolds; and, in a month when our Share-the-Plate is Interfaith Neighbors (advocating for affordable housing and access to healthy food), to connect with the local interfaith community through our own adjunct organization, the Monmouth Center for World Religions and Ethical Thought (MCWRET) for a service centered on nurturing harmony with the universe as an avenue to spiritual awakening.
It’s April!
Rev. Craig