Dear Ones,
This coming Sunday we will gather to celebrate our Ingathering Water Communion Service – a service that marks the beginning of our Congregational Worship Year. We welcome back all those who have been away for the summer, as we join in celebration and fellowship with one another. I am excited to see familiar faces and welcome new ones!
Although I have spent some time away from congregational life this summer, on vacation and study leave, I have not wandered too far. In July and August, I utilized part of my Study Leave time to accompany members of our local immigrant community on court appointments and provide support to local activists. Our neighbors have witnessed family members torn from loved ones and deported without due process; Unitarian Universalist faith leaders and congregations have risen throughout the country in moral outrage, as immigrant, queer, trans, people of color, the poor, disabled and many others have come under attack. We know that we cannot be silent in these times of authoritarian, immoral, and unconstitutional rule.
And yet, we are not without hope. We are called to meet this very moment with loving and faithful resistance, and with vision and possibility of new worlds we might, even now, birth into being. If we are going to create a better world, we need one another; we need our communities of spiritual refuge and fortification. We need communities where we can practice the values which we hold most dear. We need communities of love and justice where we might build belonging for all who seek and are – too often – cast aside.
And so, friends, let us return to the well, a place of renewal, this Sunday. Let us return to a place where we remember who we are: already whole, holy, and wholly interconnected. A place where we are called to expand the circle until it includes more, and more, and more of us.
On this Ingathering Sunday, all are welcome. Let us drink deeply from the well and be quenched by the waters – that we might meet this moment together with the renewed courage and soul force that arise.
In peace,
Rev. Terri