Imagining Our Shared Faith

So perhaps, today, this week, finally in this month, we find ourselves with space to imagine. As a result, we wonder about the changes in our country, and in our local communities. We ask ourselves what will shift in the coming months and what will endure. What shifts in our thoughts and actions are yet to come? Thus, I find myself rereading the words of the Universalist minister, the Reverend Theodore Parker (often quoted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), who wrote these wise words:

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

-Rev. Theodore Parker

It is my hope that we can begin to see more clearly how the arc may bend. By seeing clearly, if we work together, we shall watch it bend toward justice, compassion, science and reason. Thus, we’ll make it arc toward a future in which children from many racial and ethnic backgrounds thrive. By our collective action, we shall bend the arc of justice toward a world where children see people who look like them in all levels of government. In that world, in the world that is coming into being, children of all colors and heritages will see their own faces represented in the books and media that stir their imagination and help them dream of who they will become as they grow up. Through this work, our world shall become the world we imagine it can be.

Another oft-quoted piece by Theodore Parker is a sermon called “The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity.” Parker was looking at the shape of a particular theological set of ideals. We, too, may look to our nation and to our own congregation and imagine its future. In his estimation, the transient pieces are those that may change with the years, and the permanent qualities are those that act as guiding stars for our lives and for generations to come. Thus, we set our course based on what we think must remain as the permanent centering values and goals of our community.

Our Governance

I look forward to the ways that the Board is committing to finding out what we all believe those values to be, and how we shall recommit with you to use them in our Ministerial Search process in the next year. So, keep your eyes open for all the ways that the Board will be reaching out this Spring and Summer to connect with you, since we’ll want to include your voices in the conversation.

The Board will be having their annual retreat this Saturday, January 23rd, to align some of their own shared values and covenant with one another in preparation for moving forward on this work. I could not be more excited to see how things unfold.

Adult Religious Exploration

Look to our Adult Religious Exploration classes to stir your own imagination and also reconnect you to the Principle and Sources of Unitarian Universalism. Join us in our new class on Sources and Principles, on Thursdays in February and March at 8pm. We also invite you to consider our Soul Matters group at noon on the first Monday of each month. Contact Rev. Elizabeth for information on joining Adult RE classes.

In blessing and in faith,
Rev. Elizabeth