By: Rev. Dr. Harold Marrero
Beloved UU Miami community, I know many of us are exhausted by the state of the world and anxious about the future. I know I am, and I want to honor that truth. We do not gather untouched by life. We come carrying grief, uncertainty, fatigue, and the quiet weight of what it means to stay open in a hurting world. And still, even here, there is goodness worth noticing, love worth naming, and signs all around us that hope is not gone.
Last Saturday, folks from UU Miami joined Pridelines at the Florida AIDS Walk, and I am deeply grateful for that. It was a joyful reminder that our community is not only something we experience on Sunday morning, but it is also something we carry outward and live together in the wider world. I had a great time, and I look forward to more opportunities to expand our community’s reach through partnerships and shared experiences beyond Sunday services. I also want to share my gratitude to Christine G. and Arthur for stepping in this past Sunday to lead the service while Derrick was ill. Your willingness to show up for one another is not small. It is the heart of who we are. You make this minister proud to serve such a kind and wonderful community of seekers, a community that knows our true power comes from our ability to act collectively, to care for one another, and to keep going together.
We are coming close to the end of our Metamorphosis series, and this coming Sunday, Dr. Daniel Sheridan will lead us with Wings in the Sun. It feels like the right moment for this reflection, because even after transformation, there is still more to learn. A butterfly does not emerge from the chrysalis and immediately take flight. It rests. It lets its wings open. It allows warmth, time, and stillness to strengthen what has only just been born. There is wisdom in that pause. We live in a world that pressures us to prove our growth too quickly, to move on too fast, to perform healing rather than truly inhabit it. But real becoming is slower than that.
This week invites us into the slow work of integration. Wholeness is not perfection. It does not have everything resolved. It is not becoming polished, certain, or untouched by pain. Wholeness is learning how to hold our contradictions, our wounds, and our gifts in the same life. It is allowing all of who we are to belong. That kind of inner honesty, that patient gathering of the self, is sacred work.
This Sunday is also Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar, and I encourage you to bring palm fronds with you. For us, they can become more than a traditional symbol. They can become an image of our own becoming, a reminder of the butterfly resting on the palm frond, ready at last to open itself to the sun and prepare for flight. So I invite you to reflect this week on what the palm fronds are in your own life. What are the places, choices, or possibilities you have been reluctant, or even scared, to climb onto? What edge have you been standing near, knowing that something in you is ready, but not yet trusting the height?
Imagine yourself now as the butterfly, fully emerged, no longer hidden in the chrysalis, taking in the warmth of the sun and gathering strength for what comes next. Imagine yourself opening toward the energy you need to fly into whatever you have been wanting to explore, lean into, or simply become. Hold onto that image this week. Let it stay with you. And remember, becoming is an ongoing process. You do not need to rush. You do not need to prove anything. You do not need perfect wings to begin. You only need the courage to open, the patience to strengthen, and the willingness to trust that what is unfolding in you matters. As we move closer to our last Sunday of taking flight on Easter, may we honor the slow work of integration, bless what is still tender, celebrate the good among us, and make room for both weariness and wonder. Keep on going, and together, we will fly.