Happy New Year!! This is the time of year that people think about resolutions of things they want to do differently in the New Year. Usually, the proposed amends we make are not done with any real conviction. Lose weight. Quit smoking. Join a gym. And come February 15th these promised endeavors are long forgotten. Part of the reason for not achieving these worthy goals is they are surface goals and do not address the inner work that led us to overeating, nicotine, couch potato-ism in the first place. It is hard work to re-orient ourselves to doing this inner work.

Our siblings of the Hebrew faith celebrate Rosh Hashanah, their New Years in the fall. They celebrate this by renewing their covenant with their G-d and with one another. They review the previous year and make amends. Then a few days later they celebrate Yom Kippur where these wrongs committed are atoned and forgiven.

Unitarian Universalism is also a covenantal faith. Every Sunday, I define our covenanted community by saying we have made a promise to one another that we would seek to not harm one another with word or deed. Achieving this is a lifelong learning process, so we also seek one another’s forgiveness when our behaviors do not live up to our ideals.

Later in the service during Prayers of the Community, I pray: May we continue to be gentle with one another in word and deed because we never know the struggles and pain one may have hidden away from public view yet is experiencing in this present moment. I encourage us to offer that kind word, that gentle aid so it may be a comfort and hope provided at the right time, even though perhaps it is unknown to us. Blessings and mercies for our collective journeys.

There is a step that I do not mention in these statements, perhaps I should. It is a very important step and one that many avoid. I have not been saying, let one another know when words or deeds shared stung or triggered an old or new wound and were not gentle so the person could ask forgiveness and grow closer to being the loving person this faith beckons us to be. Once they know better, they can do better. We each have a role to play in the healing of our beings, and it is difficult to say “when you said that, I heard this and it stung.” No one wants to stir the beehive that is buzzing below the surface of a person’s psyche. We want to make nice, smooth things over, ignore the comment, and absorb the pain felt which then gets translated into feelings of shame, guilt, resentment and/or not feeling safe.

This faith is not an easy faith. Our covenant is not to be taken lightly. There are clues of when a non-helpful and harmful statement is about to shared. When the need to qualify a statement with a paraphrase of “I don’t mean to sound [insert a bigotry or negative behavior] but…” the words that follow are going to be hurtful. Such pre-qualifying does not lessen the blow of the harmful words about to be shared. No one likes the feeling of being told the words they used were not helpful but harmful.

The goal of covenantal community is to create a caring community where its members are self-differentiated enough to be able to hear words when we have slipped from our best selves. Hopefully our commitment to this faith’s principles has empowered us not to be scandalized when called to re-enter covenant. Not everyone is going to receive in a positive manner the message of being told their words or their behavior hurt another. Not everyone is going to care if their words or behavior caused harm, in part, because of their sense of privilege and power. These realities make speaking up harder to do. Even for the minister whose role is to do this work. Not everyone likes it when the minister says words spoken were not helpful but hurtful.

The goal is for us to grow in our own awareness of who we are, where we are, and where we want to be in defining our path forward. That awareness often happens when others tell us our words or deeds caused pain. What we do with those words is in our court — we can apologize and promise to do better, or we can respond in negative ways. In this faith, telling others their words caused harm needs to be offered in the hope of a promise to do better. No one wants others to react in negative ways and yet, they sometimes do.

Which is why this covenantal faith is difficult to apply. This is hard spiritual work. No one is adept at doing this well. Let me emphasize, no-one, not even the minister. There are those who expect the minister to be an exemplar of the faith, who has mastered all things Unitarian Universalist. True ministerial leadership is found in the minister who struggles with the people in fulfilling the covenant. It is found in the minister who doesn’t always know the words to say when hurtful and harmful words and behaviors are displayed. It is found in their stumbling and sputtering like Moses when confronting such behaviors.

So, in this New Year, may we seek to not harm one another with words or deeds. When we learn that we have, may we be willing to hear the harm done with grace. Promise to seek to do better so we may also receive forgiveness for not living up to our ideals. May we seek to continue to be gentle with one another because we may not know the wounds or traumas experienced in living in this unjust world. May our gentle word bring comfort and hope at the right time so as to be received as a refreshing spring of water on a blistering hot afternoon.

Blessed be.