Returning from the Brink ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
April 12, 2026
First Reflection: At the Brink
It has been, perhaps, the most frightening week of recent memory. To find the equivalent, I found myself going back to September 11, and then even further back to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the United States confronted the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, and responded with a naval blockade of the island.
What triggered these memories, of course, was the threat directed this past Tuesday morning by the President of the United States to the nation of Iran, proclaiming that “an entire civilization will die tonight.”
I am sure many of us worried all day, wondering how real this threat was, whether it was the typical bluster of a bully, or if this time he truly meant it. For to imagine such total destruction – a threat of genocide, really, could only mean the use of nuclear weapons.
It was a day of waiting, hoping, praying. I found that the words of William Butler Yeats’ poem The Second Coming were playing in my mind as I waited:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…”
All day I wondered: would the center hold?
The question was first raised during the presidential campaign of 2024: repeated warnings that this second time around, President Trump would not accept the limitations of professionals, of self-restrained people. “There will be no adults in the room,” the country was warned. And on Tuesday, we got to see what that could ultimately look like. Could anything or anyone stop him? Could he stop himself?
The ‘no adults in the room’ warning has certainly proved to be true. This time, the President’s staff consists exclusively of sycophants and opportunists – people only too happy to trade their integrity for access, to be in the room, at the table, so obsequious as they address the dozing President that the rest of us squirm. The President’s spiritual advisor likens him to Jesus Christ. Members of Congress are afraid of threats, and of losing re-election bids. The military and the courts are holding the line as best they can, but as we are seeing with the recent firings of generals, attempts are clearly being made to bring them to heel.
The world has been here before. We have seen what happens when men with insatiable desire for power take control. Those of us who remember Napoleon from our history classes, and those who studied Adolph Hitler, which should be absolutely everyone, should be able to discern a particular pattern displayed by these kinds of men. They are incapable of stopping themselves. As the delusions of power consume them, they try frantically to acquire more and more power. And for awhile, they seem to succeed. It begins with consolidating power at home, aided by a circle of sycophants. And then, still dissatisfied, they begin reaching beyond their borders. The playbook is always basically the same, as scholars like Timothy Snyder and Hannah Arendt tell us: identify scapegoats, create divisions, and make it impossible for people to trust and believe each other. Erode the norms, especially democratic norms that hold the center for a society. Reject any truth not coming from them. “Believe me!” they insist.
For such people, any retreat forces them to confront their limitations, so there can be no reflection, no admission of guilt or shame or failure.
Eventually, luckily for the world and its inhabitants, the delusions grow so consuming that the leader becomes incapable of any form of humility, and becomes divorced from reality. One way or the other, things do start to fall apart.
What the presidential message from Easter Sunday, last Sunday, with its profane demands to the Iranians, and the following message this past Tuesday showed us is that we have reached a point that most of us never really believed was possible. For 80 years we’ve told ourselves: “This could never happen here.” This week showed us that not only could it happen, in fact, it is happening. We have been brought to the brink.
So, my dears, we were right to be afraid. And while the situation moderated, we don’t have a clear picture of what the future holds for us.
It was hard for me to bring this to you today. I want our time together to be relevant, but also a safe refuge from everything that feels out of control to us. And yet, the events of this week: a threat of committing war crimes, of genocide, demanded a reckoning, a naming of exactly what is taking place as we watch. We must not look away, and we must speak.
So this has been a reckoning, yes, but at the same time, today we also pause to look at what possibilities might emerge from this week. After all, our theme for April is Possibilities. We watch with clarity, but we also watch for reasons for hope.
Second Reflection: Returning from the Brink
There was so much meaning in the names chosen for NASA’s lunar exploration program. First, Artemis: Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and of the moon. The female twin of Apollo, our last lunar mission so many years ago. NASA, those rocket scientists, can still think poetically, can still inspire us to great heights by their choice of names. And the mission’s crew chose the name for the space capsule that would reach for the moon: Integrity. There’s a word we need to hear more.
In contrast with the basest instincts on display at the beginning of last week, as the week wore on we were more and more captured and awed by the wonder of space exploration. Certainly those of us who remember watching all those Mercury and Apollo splashdowns on our black and white TV’s were delighted Friday night to see it happening again. It brought back memories of an America striving for excellence, aspiring, embracing science and learning and exploration. Granted, it was also not a perfect America, back in the 1960’s. There was Vietnam and much deep unrest. There would not have been a female astronaut among the crew, nor an African-American. And yet, here in 2026 there was a joy in remembering our shared striving and our quest for knowledge, and a pride in what we could accomplish with a shared mission.
The sight of Earth from space continues to humble us. It reminds us that we are ultimately connected, all part of this cosmos. A moment ago I mentioned that people who aspire to become autocrats lack humility. Perhaps, someone commented on social media, we need to send them into space. In an interview the Artemis crew was asked to describe their mission. “Christina Koch, who holds the record for longest spaceflight by a woman, didn’t say ‘historic.’ She said humility, and named the workers who created the vessel. “We definitely didn’t pass the record up here alone.” Jeremy Hanson said, “Right away, you are humbled.” Victor Glover, (talking about looking back at Earth,) said, “You look like one thing. Homo sapiens is all of us.” (https://www.facebook.com/61575912148679/posts/nasa-chief-asked-the-artemis-ii-crew-to-describe-their-mission-in-one-word-four-/122166766028863738/)
This experience reported by so many astronauts, of a changed perspective, of humility in the face of wonder, of a heightened sense of interconnection, is known as the Overview Effect. Astronauts, those scientists and engineers, end up having a profound religious experience during space travel, of oneness, wholeness, interconnection. May we all hear their words and begin to look and listen with new eyes and ears.
What possibilities Artemis II offered us this week: a chance to change the narrative, to remember a past with a shared mission and shared pride, and a chance to remember that we are all from the stars, and are ultimately all one. Will there be a lasting effect? I choose to hope so.
There was joy this week, and hope, and there was also resistance. And more possibilities.
As the bellicose rhetoric from the White House becomes less and less restrained, I have been reassured by the response of the American pope, Pope Leo XIV. His has become a voice of clarity and principle, rejecting the claims of the Trump Administration that the war with Iran is divinely inspired. “God does not bless any conflict,” responded the Pope. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
Numerous religious leaders speak in the same vein, including the President of the UUA, Sophia Betancourt. Those voices are welcome, and should get more attention. But, it is the Pope who can consistently summon coverage from the world’s media, who can help to shape the narrative and help to hold the line, to hold the center, and counter the delusions, and the wild claims of holy war. And he is doing it. He has also called for treating immigrants with respect and dignity. So far, and especially this week, Pope Leo is helping steady us, to remind us that we do not commit atrocities in God’s name. With his leadership, I am hopeful that more and more religious voices will be raised, calling us back to the center, calling us to justice and mercy and peace.
My friends, our week was a roller coaster. There will be more weeks like this; the only way that this president knows how to command the world’s attention is to foster chaos and destruction. Our work, every day, must be to look for the possibilities, to watch for chances to act and speak, to remember to reach for the stars, to remember that we are all connected, living on one blue pearl of a planet. Our work is to listen for the voices that will hold us and center us, and remind us, in the words of the Prophet Micah, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.
Amen.
