Pastor Update

Hello, YVPCers and Friends, 

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Some thoughts from Jer Swigert of Global Immersions​

  From essay "My Perspective is Incomplete"

   "Proximity to power can normalize what should trouble us.  When we benefit from systems, institutions, or cultural arrangements, we are more likely to defend them, explain away their failures or assume their outcomes are necessary.  Power rarely presents itself as exploitation.  More often, it speaks the language or stability, security, growth and order.

But proximity to pain also shapes perception. People living with the consequences of policies and decisions often see realities that others can ignore.  Near suffering, abstraction collapses.  Harm becomes personal.  Trauma has names and stories attached to it.  Yet pain alone does not guarantee wisdom, objectivity, or moral clarity.  Those who suffer are still capable of resentment, tribalism, distortion, and dehumanization.

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Don't miss this:  broadening our perspective through proximity is not abandoning conviction or excusing injustice.  Some things truly are exploitative, dehumanizing, dishonest, or destructive and should be named as such.  That said, this work requires us to hold our convictions with enough humility to remain teachable...

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So perhaps this is the deeper invitation of our moment: not simply to become more informed, more certain, but to become more proximate.  To move closer to people whose experiences unsettle our assumptions.  To listen long enough that their fears, hopes, and pain are no longer theoretical.  Because if proximity shapes perception, then perhaps healing our fractured reality begins not with winning arguments, but with crossing divides.  

hopefulalternative@substack.com

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Sylvia has a dream--to plant a native and pollinator garden in our front area that now is mostly weeds.  We are a small church with older members who don't have the ability to do the work of establishing or maintaining a garden on their own.  If there is a group of interested people that have a desire to create a garden that welcomes our native animals from insects to birds, please call the church and let us know.  
Peace and blessings, 
Paula and Sylvia