Sermon delivered on Sunday, August 3, 2025 to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico via Zoom.
This sermon was originally going to be delivered in person but as more and more random arrests, harassments, deportations, kidnappings, and disappearances were/are taking place in airports, it became too risky to travel even for naturalized US citizens
Muy Buenos dias! Soy la bisnieta de Dominga, la nieta de Florentina del Rosario, la hija de Lily y la madre de Erick. Mi nombre as Maria Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa. Soy chilena. Gracias por invitarme. Siento mucho no poder estar con ustedes presencialmente y agradezco a las personas que hicieron posible que hoy podamos conectarnos aunque sea virtualmente. Ojala que en un futuro cercano podamos abrazarnos.
Beloveds, to say that we are living in challenging and uncertain times is a huge understatement. I was so looking forward to being with you in person. I hope and I pray that one day soon I will be able to join you in person.
In these times, we all feel the weight of the world on our shoulders, exacerbating existing worries, chronic health conditions, and general overwhelm. This is especially true in the US where we are doing our best to reaffirm our commitment to social justice, to cultivate hope, to nourish our communal bonds, and to strengthen our collective spirit. We are sharing resources and sustenance for the long haul. We continue to respond with heartfelt sermons and worship experiences rather than intellectualizing the mess we’re in. As more and more people are pushed to the margins, stripped of their human rights, threatened, incarcerated, and disappeared, we continue to answer the call of love with unconditional love, embodying and living our UU values by offering spaces to prepare meals, create art, sing, meditate, learn, bear witness, and conspire to do the things we can do to bring more compassion and healing to our communities and the world. We are embodying our web of interconnectedness when we prioritize showing up and working in solidarity with our Transgender and Immigrant siblings. We are activating hope when in the face of so much hatred and destruction, we reach out for each other, we pause to breathe, grieve, pray, rage, and work together. History has taught us that the answer to all this hatred and violence is resistance in the shape of community, collective action, keeping the flame alive, taking turns, resting so we don’t burn out. In these first months of this nightmarish authoritarian regime, we have experienced strong emotions that are triggering and retraumatizing. We alone cannot and should not attempt to do all the things all the time. We need to reach out, to ask for help and be of help. And we need to reach within: to examine that narrative that tells us that we are not doing enough which spirals into more and more anxiety and overwhelm. As leaders balancing the demands of our everyday lives, caring for children, grandchildren, aging parents and partners, as well as the well being of our communities, we must model resistance as caring for ourselves by practicing loving ourselves in order that we may be strong enough to care for others. “Lessons from the Geese” is a very popular story that has inspired many sermons over the years. As an immigrant and as a Unitarian Universalist minister, for me the geese symbolize more than a poetic metaphor. The more obvious lessons from the geese include: Wisdom in strategically flying together in a V formation to increase their power, asking for and giving help, recognizing when to move forward or stepping back, taking turns and allowing our leaders to rest and renew energies, showing compassion when a community member is sick or wounded and supporting and protecting them while they heal. Those are the most obvious lessons but the parallels with humans assume first of all that we are able to and free to fly. Free to organize. Free to fly across and above borders. Free to answer the urgent call from our transgender and immigrant siblings who are being threatened, erased, persecuted, and disappeared. Today, I watch those migrating geese with envy, knowing that too many of us are not free to fly, are being caged, disappeared, and punished for expressing solidarity with those who are suffering. I watch the geese flying above me with fear in my heart, because they represent all that we are losing. Churches, hospitals and schools are no longer sanctuaries. Cities and states that dare to declare themselves sanctuary are being defunded. Colleges, universities, academics, journalists, are being silenced. Books are being banned and burnt while concentration camps are being built in Florida. The education department and health care benefits for the poor are being gutted while billions are being poured into weapons and special forces to repress and disappear people. Justice is being auctioned. History repeats itself. Heartbreaking memories of my beloved Chile are vividly present as I recall those years when no one was safe, when we all feared being next, when football stadiums were converted into concentration camps, when we took refuge in our little neighborhood churches, where we witnessed our priests, nuns, and lay leaders being disappeared because they dared to offer sanctuary, to create a soup kitchen, to provide free legal advocacy to the families of the disappeared, because they/we dared to keep singing songs of freedom, dared to defend human rights, to be on the side of the poor and persecuted, dared to preach and practice a gospel of liberation theology.
But the world was watching and one of the first countries to offer political asylum to people from Chile was Mexico. It is the reason I have family in Mexico, academics whose only crime was to encourage their students to read, to question and challenge the status quo, to develop critical thinking skills, to nurture the love of learning and develop narratives grounded in philosophies that expanded understandings of the human condition and the role of democracy, history, science, and liberal religion in the construction of a more just society. They believed that another world was possible. They found refuge from fear. They found in the Mexican people a community that allowed them to survive and thrive and rebuild home and raise another generation of teachers, scientists, historians, and community builders who inherited the lessons from their elders and understand the value of freedom, the meaning of hospitality, the importance of sanctuary.
Meanwhile, the geese flying above the statue of liberty today bear witness to the desecration of the most fundamental human rights as they hear the echos of Emma Lazarus’ poem the New Colossus:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The geese flying above bear witness as that mighty woman hides her face in shame, grieving, raging, as the light of her torch, the light of hope, and the breath of life is being cruelly extinguished…We grieve with her, and we do what we can to shine the light on truth, compassion, and peace with justice.
We keep lighting this chalice, our chalice that was created precisely to be a symbol of safe passage for those seeking refuge and asylum. The Unitarian flaming chalice symbol was created during World War II by Hans Deutsch, an Austrian artist, while working with the Unitarian Service Committee. It was designed as a symbol to identify members and aid refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. The symbol, combining a chalice and a flame, was chosen for its connotations of sacrifice, love, and hope, drawing inspiration from ancient religious symbols of communion and hospitality. History is repeating itself. Our chalice once again calls us to recommit to embody our values, to center love in the face of injustice, to strategize and act in solidarity with the most vulnerable among us.
As Unitarian Universalist building the beloved community, once again we are being challenged and called to answer the call of love. To offer our heart, to realize that not everything is lost when we have each other, to move forward together, trusting that love will guide us, creating a new narrative of resistance and resiliency that is about a collective spirit, a cultural shift where rest and reflection are necessary for healing, for growth. A counter narrative to self-sacrifice, burn-out, incessant movement, and busy work that keeps us from taking stock, from looking back, from reaching out and within, from resting when we are tired. This is where the geese meet the Sankofa bird. The Sankofa bird is a powerful symbol originating from the Akan people of Ghana, West Africa. It represents the idea of learning from the past to build a better future. The symbol is often depicted as a bird with its head turned backward, carrying an egg in its mouth. Looking back, recalling lessons from the past, remembering what our ancestors lived through and left us as legacy, that is the treasure, that is the lessons, that is the light. Knowing that we have inherited lessons of courage and resiliency not just from blood relatives, but from brave community organizers, banned books, smuggled poems, countless acts of solidarity across borders, and the song of millions of caged birds:
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. By Maya Angelou
So let’s talk about strategies we learned from the geese, from our ancestors, and from Shannon Harper, Co-Director of the UUA’s Lifespan Faith Engagement Office, who developed a Liminal Action Plan (LAP). She writes that in the midst of anxiety and uncertainty about the future, we want to create change, we want to see movement, and when progress is slow, we feel frustrated. A LAP is something you do before the main event, to warm up, to keep moving, to not become stagnant. It only requires some of your energy, because if you give it your all, you’ll be too tired and burnt out when the time comes. During a LAP it’s important to recover and mentally prepare yourself for the job ahead. It’s also a time to visualize what you want to create and prepare yourself by learning new skills, dusting off old ones and practice, practice, practice.
A good Liminal Action Plan is:
- Temporary – It allows us to experi-learn.
- Trauma and grief informed – Let us remember that we’re still in the midst of a traumatic experience and people interpret and deal with trauma and grief in different ways.
- Responsive – ask, listen, let go of assumptions of what you think people need or want. Don’t do work no one asked for just because you think you should.
- Relational – value people’s relationships and how they show up, over protocol, schedules and historical systems.
- Playful – play is an underestimated part of healing, recovery and relationship building.
- Efficient – Energy is intentionally measured so that our effort can go a long way.
- Shared – Work collaboratively, ask for help, offer help, everyone can pitch in; and always offer gratitude.
- Forgiving – We can be gentle with ourselves and each other, we can adapt when needed and we can always keep looking for new possibilities.
Quien dijo que todo esta perdido, yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazon.
Beloveds, not everything is lost. As long as we keep opening and offering our heart to the work of freedom and justice centered in love. As long as we love each other across borders. As long as we are each other’s sanctuaries. So let us keep singing, conspiring, strategizing, organizing, moving forward together sigamos adelante, siempre adelante en comunidad. Nuestras alas son el espiritu de amor de nuestra comunidad. Our wings are the spirit of love of our community.
One of the most underrated lesson from the geese is that during flight, they encourage each other. That’s right, they HONK! to uplift each other. There is much power in being each other’s cheerleaders. Especially when there is so much suffering around us. As we journey together, may we be gentle with ourselves and one another. May we heed the lessons from the geese as we take turns, supporting those who are tired (including ourselves), being propelled forward by our shared energy, at times stopping and partnering with others, tending to those who are hurt. And may we honk with joy as often as we can to encourage each other and express our gratitude and love for one another as we continue building the beloved community. HONK HONK HONK and AMEN!
by Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa