Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan
July 27, 2025
What’s this? [holding up a ball of yarn]
Well, yes, it’s a ball of yarn. But it’s also a CLEW. I recently learned that our English word clue, as in a bit of evidence that helps guide us as we’re solving problems, comes from this much older word: clew, a ball of yarn.
How did these two very different meanings come to be represented by the same word? That’s right - the story of Ariadne’s clew that we heard a few minutes ago.
Moved by compassion and love, Ariadne gave Theseus a clew - a ball of yarn - to take with him into the maze on his quest. Holding tight to the yarn, he was eventually able to follow it back out again to safety and freedom. The clew is what guided him. His ticket to safety and freedom, saving him in a time of great trial and adversity.
This summer our shared worship services have been crafted in conversation with an article by Nekeisha Alayna Alexis entitled “What is the opportunity here? Re-tuning from panic to possibilities.” [1] Alexis reflects on what it’s like to live in this particular moment in our nation’s history - when every day it feels like there’s a new assault on freedom and decency. Rather than allow panic to drag her down into a feeling of futility and impotence, Alexis is choosing to, instead ask herself and others, “What is the opportunity here?” She says, “This question re-tunes me toward possibilities.”
Panic is all around us, to be sure. Not only in the national news, but here, closer to home. Just in the past week, I’ve found myself involved in several conversations about local challenges that are inducing panic:
There is grief and anger as K-State announced that the Spectrum Center - a long-time beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community at K-State - has been dismantled.
There is frustration and uncertainty as working parents scramble to figure out before and after school childcare now that many of our community’s after-school programs have been slashed, due to funding cuts.
There is rage and horror as we continue to follow the Core Civic legal case in Leavenworth, hoping and praying that the city’s refusal of a detention center is honored.
Grief, anger, frustration, uncertainty, rage horror - these are all valid and useful emotions. Panic is often right there mixed up with them, is it not? How might we follow Alexis’s lead and honor the valid emotions we have while simultaneously moving from panic to possibility?
What are the clews all around us that might help us see opportunities in our midst?
[Clew #1 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]
THE FIRST CLEW: Only Love Can Save Us Now
Oooh, this clew is actually a song from Kesha’s 2023 album, Gag Order. The song is “Only Love Can Save Us Now.” The verses of the song are filled with pain and angst as Kesha begs God for help and imagines victory over her foes. The chorus, though, has a different tone - a tone of joy. The beat pulses vibrantly and with urgency as Kesha sings the same phrase again and again: Only Love Can Save Us Now.
Some context for those who aren’t acquainted with Kesha: she rose to prominence in the early 2010s with club-happy songs like Tik Tok and Timber. In those early years, her persona was 100% a good time party girl. She was raunchy, hilarious, scantily clad, and churned out banger after banger. The music was joy in sonic form. Music that makes you forget all the negative things in your life.
In recent years, though, it’s become clear that she’s not just a party girl. Kesha has begun to share about some of the panic-inducing challenges in her own life. And it turns out, she’s been through a lot: an abusive relationship with her former producer followed by a decade-long legal battle, an ongoing struggle with bulimia, and, more recently, a chronic immunodeficiency disease which has almost killed her.
Throughout it all, Kesha has proudly identified as a queer artist, strongly supporting LGBTQ+ communities. Journalist Amy Rose Spiegel writes that
“Only Love Can Save Us Now,” … was partially conceived as [Kesha] observed the inequities that compound every day as queer and trans people are vilified and assailed across the US.
“Saying it’s heartbreaking is not enough,” Kesha says, and she’s right—it isn’t. She’s trying to figure out what might be more actionable. “What I’ve accepted in my life is, you keep marching forward. I don’t have the answer, and I’m not a politician, but that’s the energy. It gets really exhausting seeing attack after attack after attack on the queer community,” she says. [2]
Sometimes, I find myself overwhelmed by the hatred all around us, and I can feel paralyzed by panic. In those moments, I often hear Kesha’s voice in my ear: “Only love can save us now.” It sounds so simple, but it feels like a powerful clew we can hold onto. When all else fails, we can hold onto love.
[Clew #2 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]
THE SECOND CLEW: Beautiful Fundamentals by Javier Soto
Ah, yes, the second clew is a fictional book mentioned in a work of fiction. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2022 novel, Carrie Soto is Back, tells the story of professional tennis player, Carrie Soto, who, at the age of 37, comes out of retirement to reclaim her Grand Slam records. From early childhood, Carrie is coached by her father, Javier Soto, who has a strong belief in the power of fundamentals. In fact, he wrote a bestselling book on how important they are: Beautiful Fundamentals.
As we continue to ponder how to move from panic to possibility, let’s get inside Carrie’s head as she reflects on how important fundamentals are when we’re trying to do hard things:
Legs, arms, toss, hit, follow.
Hour after hour, day after day, the same drills. Sometimes not even hitting an actual ball but just doing the motions, feeling the routine of it. My dad would even make me do it in front of a mirror, watching each movement in my body as I flowed through the form.
I remember getting so frustrated at the repetition—the sheer boredom. My father made me practice long after I’d perfected it.
And I would rail against him when I was a kid, but he would not be swayed from his plan…
“Do you think about breathing?” he asked me one afternoon on the courts when I was complaining. “You are breathing, with your lungs, every second you are alive, no?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But do you think about it?”
“No, my body just does it.”
“Think about how little else you could do if you had to think about how to breathe every time you did it.”
“Okay…”
“I want your form to be like breathing. Right now, hijita, you are still doing it with your mind,” he told me. “We will not stop until you have done it so many times, your body does it without thinking. Because then, you’ll be free to think of everything else.”
I don’t know if I understood it then or just resolved to do as I was told. But when I joined the junior circuits and then the WTA, and I looked at the other women I was playing, I could see how slowly most other players reacted.
My father had crammed my forms, my stances, my strokes into my mind with such repetition that it made its way into my cells. It lived in my muscles and joints. It’s true, still, today.
And so, with every ball that comes at me, my mind remains free to run through every single shot I have in my arsenal, to consider the flaws in the court. I can better anticipate a bad bounce, or find a shot my opponent isn’t expecting.
And then comes the moment when I make contact with the ball—and in that split second, muscle memory takes over. [2]
What are the fundamentals that allow us to do what Carrie describes in this passage? What are the things that we must practice again and again and again until they are like muscle memory? Smiling at a stranger - staying hydrated - listening to the wisdom of children - seeking to truly understand the perspective of those who are different than us - tuning out the noise and listening to the voice of love within - ensuring we are caring for our bodies as well as our spirits - holding healthy boundaries with our time and energy - speaking to ourselves and others kindly and with respect - making time to appreciate and create art ….
These, and many others, are the fundamentals of humanity. And there is beauty in returning to our fundamentals in a time of panic, because as Javier tells Carrie, when these things are “like breathing” then our bodies do them without thinking. And then we are “free to think of everything else.”
[Clew #3 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]
THE THIRD CLEW: Asset Based Community Development
The final clew is a bit of that “everything else” we can be freed up to think about once we’ve practiced the fundamentals again and again.
With this final clew we’re moving away from stories and into the “hey, here’s something to hold onto as you move into your week” portion of this sermon. Otherwise known as “homework.”
This third clew is “ABCD”: Asset Based Community Development. It’s a mindset and method of caring for our communities. And it’s a simple but POWERFUL tool for moving ourselves and our neighbors from panic to possibilities.
Here’s a very basic definition from the Tamarack Institute:
“Asset Based Community Development” looks for and starts from people’s gifts and strengths (assets). These assets equip people to create local opportunities and respond to needs and challenges in their neighbourhoods. ABCD goes beyond any individual’s gifts or particular group’s strengths to consider how these may come together to create broader changes for the common good within a community.
Where a deficit-based approach starts by identifying needs, asset-based community development identifies and builds upon community strengths. ABCD empowers individuals and groups to come together, with institutions in support when required, to develop their strengths, working together to build on the identified assets of all involved!
While entire organizations exist to do the work of ABCD, it’s also a tool individuals can use. It something YOU can use in our community to help weave strong connections - to help care for your neighbors.
And this is where I have a challenge for each of us: would you be willing to hold onto the clews you’ve been given here today and go into the world to help move the needle from panic to possibilities?
Would you be willing to talk to your neighbors - your literal neighbors who live near you - and get to know them better? I know, I know, this can feel impossible. Some of us struggle with social anxiety. Some of us already KNOW that our neighbors are very different from us. Some of us are short on time. Some of us are very introverted. I get it. I’m not saying this is easy, but I am inviting you into the work.
If you’re open to this task, I’m going to ask you to share your e-mail address with me on this clipboard that’s coming around. I commit to emailing you this week with more specific instructions for how to complete your mission. There will be options - some as simple as having a short conversation with a neighbor, some as complex as making an asset map of your neighborhood. And I’ll be there as your coach and cheerleader every step of the way.
The world is full of panic. How powerful would it be if our three congregations came together and committed to moving the needle towards possibility?
May the clews lead us onward. And may the Spirit of Love that lies around and within us knit us together - giving us strength for the journey.
NOTES:
[1] https://ambs.edu/news/what-is-the-opportunity-here-re-tuning-from-panic-to-possibilities/
[2] https://www.self.com/story/kesha
[2] Reid, Taylor Jenkins. Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel (p. 256).
[3] Tamarack Institute https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AJhkc_6ynNkd6lK5XGMaA3td40Qf5Ipa/view
