​Our Monday Meditation is “Benediction for the Heavy Heart” by UUA staff member Mason Bolton. It reads:

“Good morning. I missed your ‘good’
because a plane, because a truck, because
a gun, because a cop, because a government,
because a people suffering, because too many
people suffering, because war, because famine,
because some mornings it is so hard
to rise, to wake, to be a self.

There is a pause here. There is a deliberate
cessation. I want a cessation to the noise
in my head, to the ache in the collective
heart of this world. When I was young
this seemed possible. . . .

I want your mornings ‘good,’ your evenings ‘good,’
all the late nights and sunrises and afternoons
and moments pressed against the ticking
glass of your life ‘good.’

Breathe. For yourself. For each other. Let
us breathe in when others cannot. When we
can do nothing else. Let us stretch ourselves
open to embrace our friends, extend
our bodies outward to anyone willing to meet us
and even those we think may not be willing. Let us
hold each other for this moment. For this
blink of human existence.”

Read this and other meditations in the new Skinner House Books title “To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience” available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop http://tinyurl.com/ybsj9f49