What keeps UUs going through dark times?

There are times when the living gets tough. We find ourselves in dark places, very dark places.

There are times when we want to give up, even want to die. We think, "It would have been better if I were never born," and "I've had enough. I don't want to go on."

At such times of despair when there is no hope to be found, what then?

There is a dim, weak sense of Life. Against our egotistical will we are called to continue into God only knows what. We don't want to go on, but something beyond us wants us to.

That something beyond us some call the Tao, some call Grace which has been described as "amazing", some call it the Holy Spirit, and some with no other name call it simply "faith."

Faith keeps us moving in the darkness through our despair. We intuit that in spite of everything horrible, destructive, evil, Life goes on.

We are living a mystery. We are living the question as Rilke said.

Unitarian Univeralism teaches that the covenant based on seven principles will somehow see us through, of which the first and the seventh are the most important: the inherent worth and dignity of every person no matter what, and the love for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.

As was said in the 60s by way of encouraging one another, "Keep the faith!"