It's Not All Right / It's All Right, Rev. Josh Pawelek, June 21, 2026

“Here comes the sun, and I say ‘It’s all right.’”[1] 

          When our world is not all right—and, as you know, it’s not—we need music, poetry, art, dance, literature, worship, prayers and sermons that instill in us the confidence that there are reliable paths forward through the pain and the mess, that the people who care about people and not profits, the people who care about the planet and not profits—including ourselves—are collectively going to find a way, are going to prevail, and are justified in proclaiming “it’s all right,” or at least trusting that it will be. We need that message. And it seems to me that the summer solstice, which occurred at approximately 4:24 this morning (for those of us here at approximately 41° North of the Equator and 72° west of the Greenwich meridian) the summer solstice—the day among all the days of the year with the longest span of sunlight in the northern hemisphere—is a fine day to proclaim “it’s all right.”

          Turn to your neighbor and say “it’s all right.”

          Online folks: turn on your videos and pronounce the words “it’s all right.”

          Happy solstice!

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          But the nation is not all right. The world is not all right. As this is my final sermon of the September-to-June congregational year, and as it is my custom during my final sermon to reflect on the year that has just passed, I’ll begin by saying that all year long I have felt keenly the tension between wanting to assure myself, you and people in the wider community that “it’s all right, we’ll be ok, we’re gonna get through this:” and, at the same time, wanting and needing to be completely honest, sober, realistic and clear-eyed about the rise of authoritarianism in our country and abroad; relentless attacks on the institutions that sustain our democracy; attacks on voting and federal government jobs that reek of old-school, anti-back racism; the unconstitutional abduction and detainment of immigrants; attacks on LGBTQIA+ people and communities with a particularly cruel, even genocidal focus on transgender people, expressed most recently in the May 6^th White House counter-terrorism strategy memo which sinfully identifies “radically pro-transgender groups” as a terrorist threat to the United States;[2] the slow dismantling of time-honored social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP with no apparent purpose other than to lower taxes for the country’s wealthiest citizens; attacks on scientifically-verified public health regimens and standards; attacks on higher education for the crime of wokeness; the dismantling of the Department of Education; abandonment of the nation’s environmental and renewable energy commitments; the blatantly unnecessary and inflation-causing war in Iran, etc.

It’s all right. It’s not all right. That’s the tension I feel as a preacher and a pastor. I don’t have a single colleague who doesn’t feel this tension. So I wonder, when things are not all right, how can we justify preaching the message that “it’s all right?”

          This year I preached a lot about Unitarian and Universalist history, in part as a reminder that our spiritual forebears faced moments when the country was not all right, when they had every reason to despair, yet they found the confidence that things would be “all right.” They also understood they had a role to play, had a responsibility to act, had power to exercise. They had agency. In January I spoke about Universalist and Unitarian spiritual forebears who fought against slavery in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and for civil rights in the 20^th century. In March, near the start of the Iran war, I spoke about Unitarian and Universalist women who had served as Civil War nurses and, through their later writing and activism, helped shape a feminist anti-war spiritual identity animates Unitarian Universalism to this day.

          I also led two history tours to Boston and Concord, MA—one with our Affirmation youth in November, the other with twelve adults in May. On both trips we toured Orchard House in Concord, the home of the celebrated writer, Louisa May Alcott. It’s always fascinating to me how we can spend a day in Boston, visit the historic downtown congregations, learn about their amazing history going back to the 17^th and 18^th centuries, and still wonder, “Where did Unitarian Universalism as we know it today come from?” Our UU ways of doing theology, our reverence for nature, our appreciation of the world’s religions, our understanding of creativity as a spiritual path, our trust in the individual to chart their own spiritual course, our faithful valuing of the scientific method—where did all that come from? Then we leave Boston to visit Concord, which birthed the Transcendentalist movement in the 1830s and 1840s—which shaped Louisa May Alcott—and it becomes much more clear. Certainly, our roots lie in Boston with the Puritan colonists, and we need to wrestle with that; but when we visit Concord, we start to encounter language, theology and a variety of spiritual and social commitments that sound much more like who we are today.

          I want to share a few passages from Alcott’s 1872 book entitled Work: A Story of Experience, which help me navigate the tension between “not all right” and “all right.” Published a few years after her most famous book, Little Women, Work tells the story of Christie Devon, a young adult and orphan living with her moderately well-to-do aunt and uncle, who decides to seek her independence through working. She moves into an urban boarding house and works: as a domestic servant, an actress, a governess, a companion to a teenager with disabilities, a seamstress, etc., all of which Louisa May Alcott engaged in prior to her success as a writer.

In the midst of a deep depression, Christie contemplates going to church, but she can’t find one that suits her. Her critique of churches reminds me of the conversations we have at our Intro to UU classes when participants talk about their past experiences with organized religions, which are not always pleasant.

          [Christie] went to many churches, studied many creeds, and watched their fruits as well as she could; but still remained unsatisfied. Some were cold and narrow, some seemed theatrical and superficial, some stern and terrible, none simple, sweet, and strong enough for humanity’s needs. There was too much machinery, too many walls, laws, and penalties…. Too much fear, too little love; too many saints and intercessors, too little faith in the instincts of the soul which turns to God as flowers to the sun. Too much idle strife about names and creeds; too little knowledge of the natural religion which has no name but godliness, whose creed is boundless and benignant as the sunshine, whose faith is as the tender trust of little children in their mother’s love…. A God of wrath I cannot love; a God that must be propitiated, adorned, and adored like an idol I cannot respect; and a God who can be blinded to men’s iniquities through the week by a little beating of the breast and bowing down on the seventh day, I cannot serve.[3]

          A few chapters later, as she’s coming out of her depression, a friend suggests she try Rev. Power’s church. Rev. Power is modeled after the transcendentalist and abolitionist Unitarian minister Theodore Parker. (If you watched the opening ceremony for the Barack Obama Presidential Center, you might have noticed that Obama concluded his speech with a few paragraphs about Parker.[4]) At the height of his career Parker led a 2,000-member congregation called the 28^th Congregational Society. Today we’d call it a mega church. Alcott attended services there. When Christie worships at Rev. Power’s church, the first thing she notices is its diversity. All sat at ease, rich and poor, black and white, young and old. When Rev. Power announces the first hymn, she writes: Everybody did sing. Not harmoniously, but heartily, led by an organ, which the voices followed at their own sweet will. Then a prayer. Christie had never heard a prayer like that before … so comprehensive, so brief. A quiet talk with God, asking nothing but more love and duty toward him and our fellow-men; thanking him for many mercies, and confiding all things trustfully to the “dear father and mother of souls.” (As an aside, Parker was one of the first American ministers to endorse the women’s suffrage movement, and he famously and controversially referred to God as both Father and Mother.)

Then, at that fictional first service, Power’s sermon critiqued the money-focused, capitalist culture of the day. Alcott writes: The ashes of the ancient hypocrites and Pharisees was left in peace, but those now living were heartily denounced; modern money-changers scourged out of the temple, and the everlasting truth set up therein.

          And I love the way the service ends: Another hymn, and a benediction that seemed like a fit grace after meat, [though I note the Alcotts were vegans] and then the crowd poured out; not yawning, thinking of best clothes, or longing for dinner, but waked up, full of talk, and eager to do something to redeem the country and the world.[5] For the first time in her life religion seemed a visible and vital thing; a power that she could grasp and feel, take into her life and make her daily bread.[6]

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          In her tour of local churches, Christie found too much fear, too little love.

          Too much fear, too little love.

My interpretation: She was looking for a congregation that centered love—love for God, love for each other, love for humanity and, we might add today, love for the planet. In looking back over this past year, I think we center love pretty well here at UUSE. It’s not perfect, but then Rev. Power’s church couldn’t sing in harmony! I see our love in the way we embrace our children and youth: six infants dedicated on May 17^th, five youth affirmed on June 7^th, and all manner of kids bridging and performing in last Sunday’s Children and Youth Ministry service. I see it in the steady growth of our adult membership: 36 new members over the last two congregational years. I see it in the way we mourn and celebrate our deceased love ones, the way we speak the truths of their lives, the way they live on in our hearts and make us laugh and smile long after they’re gone. I see it in all those who volunteer as leaders, for fundraisers, for committees, teaching children and youth, and more.

          I see it in the way so many of you show up for the rallies and the protests, that regular embodied testament to your frustration and anger at how not “all right” things are. I see it in all the people who’ve signed up to be part of our Good Neighbor teams, supporting the families of immigrants unfairly detained by ICE. (By the way, in May we activated our first Good Neighbor Team and raised $400 for a young Peruvian mom from Bristol who is currently being detained at a facility in Louisiana.) I see it in all those who’ve signed up to participate in our statewide UU effort to help relocate transgender people who are moving from dangerous states to safer states like Connecticut. I saw it in everyone who showed up for the first ever Manchester Pride festival. I see it in the way our congregation is held in high esteem by leaders and organizations around the state.

          No, we are not perfect. Yes, we have work to do. But I think we put love at the center. I think we’re courageous. And I think we recognize we are not powerless when the nation and the world are not all right. We recognize, as so many of our spiritual forebears did, that we have a role to play, a responsibility to act, power to exercise. We have agency. The world is not all right. The nation is not all right. But with this loving faith, we are also justified in proclaiming, “it’s all right.”

          And every Sunday, no matter who is in the pulpit, it is my hope that you find religion, in the words of Louisa May Alcott, to be a visible and vital thing, a power that you can grasp.  And when you depart into the coming week, you are waked up and eager to do something to redeem the country and the world.

          Here comes the sun. It’s all right. Go forth and redeem the country and the world.

          Amen and blessed be.

[1] Harrison, George, “Here Comes the Sun,” Abbey Road (Apple Records, 1969). Track 1.

[2] The United States 2026 Counter-Terrorism Strategy, page 7, May 6, 2026. See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf.

[3] Alcott, Louisa May, Work: A Story of Experience (New York: Penguin Books, 1994) pp. 115-116.

[4] Read the full text of President Obama’s speech at https://barackobama.medium.com/president-obama-and-mrs-obamas-remarks-at-the-opening-of-the-obama-presidential-center-cb614fd04bdd.

[5] Ibid., p. 159 – 161.

[6] Ibid., p. 166.