March 9, 2008
It’s been an odd year for us. At times it’s been a hard year. I remember telling colleagues back in early October “In nine years of parish ministry, this has been the most difficult beginning.” Why so odd? Why so difficult? In late August there was that terrible news: our beloved sister, Carol Shapiro, had disappeared, an apparent suicide. But the police couldn’t find her, and still haven’t. Grief is hard enough when you know for sure you’ve lost someone forever. When there is loss but no information, when there is no closure. I miss Carol. I look forward to honoring her in a service of memory this spring.
At the same time we received difficult news about our building project: the design we’d been working on so enthusiastically—the design so many of us had grown to love, the design to achieve all our dreams—for a variety of reasons, would cost twice as much to build as we had anticipated. Think about this: In 2003—five years ago this month—you called me to be your parish minister. Since then, by so many measures, we’ve been engaged in a wonderful, successful, compelling shared ministry. With confidence and joy we entered into a thoughtful process of congregational growth. We got excited about a vision for our future building and the programs it would house. We consistently met our financial goals. We added a full-time sexton to our staff. We conducted a phenomenal capital campaign. We added an amazing new music director. Everything was going well. But not just well—great! Even better than great! Success after success after success.
And we learned the design is unaffordable. What happens when a community that is so used to good news—so used to “better than great”—finally encounters bad news? How do we stop, learn our lessons, recover and start again? We weren’t used to asking these questions. We were used to getting things right the first time. Now things were messy, the future blurry, the vision in question. Could we tolerate making mistakes, not getting it right, not doing it well? Could we still listen to each other? Could we still love each other? It was an odd and difficult beginning to the year.
Our reading from Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers speaks to our situation last fall and speaks to us now. It speaks to many of our lives, and I certainly want you to reflect on what it means for you personally; but I’m concerned right now with what it means for us as a congregation. “We have focused for a long time on trying to discover what’s right.” Yet, such “activities are cloaked in terror…. What if we get it wrong?” And if we fall prey to this fear, “when errors hold so much peril, play disappears. Creativity ceases. Only fear and struggle persist. Paradoxically, we make greater errors.”
As your pastor this is my experience of last fall and how we handled it as a congregation. It was messy. It was emotional. We needed space to vent negative energy, to say hard things, to speak our truths before we could chart a new course. We created these spaces, and although they were tedious and difficult for some, we did not become paralyzed. We did not give into fear. We did not make greater errors. We were able to let go of “getting it right the first time.” We did not have to be the fittest, as Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers suggest, we just had to be fit. We realized, “there is no one answer that is right, but many answers that might work. Life explores all sorts of combinations.”
Most of you are not intimately close to the inner workings of the building leadership team—though I hope you do read the updates in the newsletter. The team has, over the course of these seven months, been exploring all sorts of combinations. We have regained our sense of creativity and play. We have come to the realization there are many answers that might work; our task is not to be beholden to the “right” or “perfect” answer, but to have faith that the best and most realistic answer will emerge. And with this faith—with this openness to many possibilities—we will create a beautiful, expanded home for UUS:E. Will it be all things to all people and achieve every goal? No. Will it enable us to fulfill our mission of caring for one another, nurturing the search for truth and meaning, working for peace and justice and living in harmony with the earth? Yes. I wouldn’t have said what I am about to say last month and I wouldn’t say it now if I didn’t feel completely confident it is a true statement: we have weathered a storm together and we are stronger because of it. I am proud. And I hope you are too.
I’m proud not only because we have responded well to a difficult situation. I’m proud because through this entire time UUS:E has continued doing so many of the things it does well. I was so touched last Saturday at the talent show when young Sarah A. was the first act of the night. She got up on stage, more confident than nervous, and danced to Tchaikovsky’s “Sugar Plumb Ferry.” She was wonderful—up on her toes, spinning around, trying out all her best ballet moves. This was UUS:E at its best. The A’s are a new family, having recently moved from Ohio. Moves are hard on kids. But here’s a congregation where Sarah can get up on stage and perform and be authentically cheered for her performance. It helps her know she has a spiritual home. Watching Sarah dance led me to the poem I read earlier from A.R. Ammons. “I look for the way things will turn out spiraling from a center, the shape things will take to come forth in.” Here is this child spiraling around our stage, doing what makes the most sense to her, following her heart, tracing with her child’s body patterns that wind and water and DNA and stars and clouds also trace. “I look for the way things will turn out spiraling from a center.”
And there was Chloe Campellone doing karate to the disco song “Kung Fu Fighting;” Will and Catherine Eggers, father and daughter, doing their piano and trombone duet; Steve and Andy Dauphinais, father and son, doing their trumpet and drums duet; Thea Bock-Hughes singing “Let it Be;” my kids doing their little shticks; Mathew Falkowski with his electric guitar; and Olivia, Gianna, Claire and Tracey doing “Peace Like A River.” Everyone in the moment. No one having to be perfect. Everyone spiraling, showing us, as the poet says, “the forms things want to come as.”
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling at UUS:E. Pawel has given us this gift of a regular choir. What a blessing! What a wonderful addition to our worship services. It felt so good this past Thursday to have our choir sing at the Interfaith Coalition service—and not only did they sing their own piece, but they sang back-up for Father Sledesky of St. Bridget’s Church. Who would have seen this shape spiraling out even six months ago?
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. We just had a very successful retreat for transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, an initial step in revitalizing our Welcoming Congregation identity and making sure we are doing everything we can to challenge homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia. I am so thankful and excited this shape is spiraling out!
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. As part of our local anti-racism efforts we’ve been slowly developing relationships with what is known in Manchester as SOC or the students of color parent’s advocacy group. Some of you know there is intense debate in Manchester over whether or not Huckleberry Finn should still be taught at the high school. It’s a challenging, difficult debate. What is exciting for me is that SOC is looking to members of our congregation to be engaged, to be part of the solution. That is a commitment we can make towards building a cohesive, vibrant, anti-racist, multicultural community in Manchester.
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. A few weeks ago, Love Makes a Family, the state’s largest grassroots gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization sent one of its newer staff to join us on a Sunday morning and invite us to write postcards in support of marriage equality. What warms my heart is that when Love Makes a Family wants to send a new staff member to work with communities of faith, they want them to have a positive experience when they begin. So, where is one of the places they like to send them? The Unitarian Universalist Society: East in Manchester, CT.
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. Almost 100 members and friends of UUS:E participate in Small Group Ministry. We find that it is often difficult for parents with young children to participate in these groups. So, Vicki Merriam and I are trying to create a group that is half Small Group Ministry, half play-date. I hope it works. There is no one answer that is right, but many answers that might work.
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. At meetings of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice more and more members and friends of UUS:E keep showing up, helping organize events, participating in press conferences, working on web sites, even helping to write environmental justice legislation.
Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling. I’m reminded of how we conduct memorial services, how those who come to our congregation for memorial services always feel grateful that we spend so much time celebrating the person who has died, that we really remember their lives. We conducted memorial services for Alice Welti and Hal Sternberg in December. Thinking of Hal Sternberg in particular, many of you know he brought his Jewish heritage very much into the congregation, and for many years led a Seder around the time of Passover. In memory of Hal, this year, on April 19th we will hold the first annual Hal Sternberg Memorial Seder. Wonderful new shapes are emerging and spiraling.
Despite an odd, difficult beginning to our congregational year, we have sustained vital ministries and have begun to grow new ones; we have sustained vital relationships in the larger community and have begun to grow new ones. A.R. Ammons writes: I’m “not so much looking for the shape as being available to any shape that may be summoning itself through me from the self not mine but ours.” At UUS:E many shapes are summoning themselves through us—many dancers are spiraling around the stage—from a self not mine—not any single person’s—but ours. I suppose this is another way of saying, “We’re doin’ church; and we’re doin’ it well.”
With that said, it’s annual appeal time. I would be remiss if I did not ask the dreaded question: what’s it worth? None of it is free. Starting next Sunday, every one of us will be contacted by a steward who will ask to visit. This visit is a chance to share your thoughts about UUS:E and then make your financial pledge for next year. To help prepare for this year’s visit, I want to speak about the Policy Board’s proposed budget. The Policy Board has really struggled to keep cost increases—and therefore overall pledge increases—low. The budget’s first draft paid for everything we wanted but required over a 15% increase in pledges. They asked all committees and staff to make cuts, which happened, but they felt it was still too much. At their last meeting they stayed late, trimming and tweaking so that the overall increase in pledges sought is now under 10%, the lowest increase in four years.
What is wonderful about this budget is that, despite all the cutting, it still meets many of our strategic goals. In addition to giving our staff a decent cost of living increase; in addition to covering the costs of my sabbatical next fall; in addition to paying our fair share dues to the denomination; in addition to paying for increasing utility costs; this budget achieves the following strategic goals: it begins to decrease our dependency on fundraisers; funds the continued revitalization of our Welcoming Congregation identity; formally establishes our technology committee; continues to fund our involvement in East of the River Unitarian Universalists Pulling Together, still our best option for adding a second minister; creates a fund (almost $9,000) that will eventually help us pay down the debt on our anticipated building loan; and the thing that excites me most: this budget, if we reach it, will establish for the first time a paid youth advisor position. Congregations our size run successful youth programs with paid staff dedicated to leading those programs. I don’t just want us to have a successful youth program. I want us to have an amazing youth program—one that attracts kids from all over the area, one that is safe for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, one that is multi-racial, one that nurtures youth in their spiritual development, one that cements their loyalties to Unitarian Universalism by making it profoundly relevant in their lives. This budget takes a first step toward that vision. I commend the Finance Committee and the Policy Board for the work they’ve done.
Stephany and I will gladly increase our pledge by at least 10%. When I think of little Sarah spiralling around the talent show stage, I think it is worth a 10% increase in my pledge. When I think of my own kids up on that stage, banging away at the drums, 10% is worth it. A revitalized Welcoming Congregation identity is worth 10%. Our excellent staff is worth 10%. Our youth are worth 10%. All the shapes emerging and spiralling through our involvement in various social justice efforts out in the wider community are worth 10%. A growing, healthy, vital congregation that has learned to value creativity and play over getting it perfectly right, that has learned to let go of untenable dreams and open itself up to a multitude of answers is worth 10%.
Friends, it is time for deeper roots and stronger wings. When your steward calls, please take the time to meet with them. Please pledge generously. Thank you for your generosity. Amen and Blessed be.
