My connection with the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry began September 26, 2001. It was just fifteen days after the perilous events in New York City, Washington, DC, and western Pennsylvania.

In the late 1940s and early 50s, there was a song which, when it came on the radio, would make my dad groan and move as if to turn it off, muttering “That darn song, it’s so sticky!” and my mother and I would cry out, “No, we want to hear it!”

For years, one of my favorite hymns of hope has been Carolyn McDade’s “We’ll Build a Land.” It opens with: “We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken; we’ll build a land where the captives go free…”

For many, the month of December is a time of stillness and cold, and it can be lonely. So we warm it up by welcoming love back, ushering in the return of light, and celebrating the resilience of our communities.

That you can contribute to the CLF while your do your shopping on Amazon?

Hope wakes up in her green-lit room, stretches, tugs at her flannel nightie, opens her limbs to the morning.