Gratitude as Resistance

Annual Theme: Rooted & Rising: Faith for a Changing World

In a time of global transformation, uncertainty, and awakening, our Unitarian Universalist tradition calls us to be both deeply rooted and boldly rising. This congregational year, Rooted & Rising: Faith for a Changing World invites us to explore how our spiritual lives, values, and communities can ground us while inspiring courageous action.

Monthly Reflection

What would it mean to let gratitude shape my resistance, my healing, and my hope?

Gratitude in the face of injustice becomes a radical act. It is not naiveté or denial, it is a fierce, grounded practice that roots us in joy, resilience, and connection. To choose gratitude is to resist the lie that we are only what we lack. It is to remember abundance even in scarcity, to name beauty in the midst of struggle, and to honor life even when the world is aching.

This month, we practice gratitude not as escape, but as a form of sacred resistance; a way of staying human in inhuman times.

Significant Dates

• 11/02 Daylight Savings Time Ends
• 11/02 Dia de los Muertos
• 11/04 Election Day
• 11/10 Veterans Day
• 11/20 Transgender Day of Remembrance & Resilience
• 11/22 National Adoption Day
• 11/27 Thanksgiving Day
• 11/28 Native American Heritage Day
• 11/30 First Sunday of Advent

Celebrating Diversity: Harvesting Kinship: Indigenous Futures and Family Traditions

Each week this month, we’ll explore a facet of kinship and the many ways communities honor their ancestors while dreaming the future into being:

• Week 1: Roots of Relationship:  Stories of ancestral wisdom, land connection, and the sacred bonds between humans and the natural world.
• Week 2: Seeds of Family & Tradition: Celebrating chosen, blended, and intergenerational families whose love sustains communities across generations.
• Week 3: Fields of Story & Song: Honoring the storytellers, poets, and artists whose words and melodies keep cultures alive and evolving.
• Week 4: Harvesting Futures: Uplifting Indigenous innovators, activists, and visionaries who are building sustainable, just, and joy-filled futures for all.

Sunday Celebrations Overview

NOTE: BridgesUU does not host Sunday Celebrations. We offer resources including monthly and weekly blurbs, Celebration Outlines, Sunday Scripts, Musical Selections, Celebrating Our Youth Stories, Activies, and Resources, as well as, Multimedia Decks.

In a world that often insists on scarcity, fear, and despair, choosing gratitude is a radical act. To let gratitude shape our resistance, our healing, and our hope is to affirm that life is still sacred, love is still possible, and community is still worth building. This month, we ask: What would it mean to root our resistance in gratitude – not as denial of suffering, but as defiance in the face of it?

Together we will explore gratitude in the midst of struggle, rest and healing for leaders, hope in inhumane times, and thanksgiving even when prayers go unanswered. We close the month with a multigenerational celebration of light, reminding us that gratitude is not resignation – it is resilience.

Sunday Celebrations

Sun, Nov 02, 2025 – “Gratitude in the Struggle”
How can we remain grateful while engaging in the hard and holy work of resistance? As authoritarianism threatens justice and democracy in our nation, gratitude can sustain us – not as passive acceptance but as fuel for courage. This service explores practices of gratitude that ground us, even when the work is exhausting.

Sun, Nov 09, 2025 – “Healing the Healers”
Activism and community leadership can take a heavy toll. This Sunday, we pause to honor the need for rest, healing, and care – both for ourselves and for those who carry the burdens of leadership. Together, we explore how gratitude for one another can become a balm that restores us for the journey ahead.

Sun, Nov 16, 2025 – “Hope in Inhumane Times”
When the world feels cruel, gratitude can help us hold on to our humanity. This service reflects on where we find hope, connection, and courage when times feel most inhumane. In gratitude, we remember that to be human is to love, to create, to resist despair, and to rise together.

Sun, Nov 23, 2025 – “Unanswered Prayers”
What does gratitude look like when our prayers seem to go unanswered? In the face of oppression, loss, or disappointment, how do we remain thankful for the gifts we do have – our relationships, our resilience, our rights hard-won? This service invites us into a practice of gratitude not as denial but as resistance, cultivating strength even in heartbreak.

Sun, Nov 30, 2025 – Intergeneral Sunday: “Sharing the Light”
In this intergenerational service, we celebrate light as a symbol of gratitude, hope, and resilience. Together, we bless the turning of the season and introduce a week of daily reflections on our Unitarian Universalist values. With stories, songs, and ritual, we kindle light for the days ahead – reminders that gratitude and love can never be extinguished.

Creative Arts

Each month we are creating our music that align with our theme for the month. All of our music is available for unlimited use by BridgesUU Covenanting Communities. If you are interested in becoming a BridgesUU Covenanting Community or licensing one of our songs, please let us know. We will be happy to provide sheet music as well as audio and video files.

“Won’t You Celebrate with Me“
Written & Composed by Paul Ermisch

CHORUS
Won’t you celebrate with me.
Won’t you celebrate with me.
Make a joyful sound of praise.
Won’t you celebrate with me.

VERSE 1
Though we struggle to see the light
And each day is filled with doubt
Our hopes and dreams will guide us
And make darkness turn about.

The road ahead may wind and turn
Through valleys deep and wide
But courage lives within our hearts
A flame we hold inside

(CHORUS)

VERSE 2
With every step we take together
Every burden that we share
We prove that love can conquer fear
And show the world we care.

So lift your voice and sing with me
Let hope ring loud and clear
For even in the darkest hour
A new dawn will appear

(CHORUS)

Additional Musical Selections:

The following musical selections align with our theme for the month.

Singing the Living Tradition

• 322 “Thanks Be for These”
• 349 “We Gather Together”
• 355 “We Lift Our Hearts in Thanks”
• 404 “What Gift Can We Bring”

Singing the Journey

• 1010 “We Give Thanks”

More 2025/26 Year Themes

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