Lots of ways to get involved in church right now!  Join us at Preble Street on first Tuesdays - See my Faith In Action page for more details. And, for a deeper experience of faith in action, join us on pilgrimage this summer to Transylvania - details on my Pilgrimage & Mission Page. Also, I'm looking forward to seeing all of you at our 2nd Maine Farm Supper on Saturday, February 9th....read all about it on our new Facebook page!!!

For a debrief about my December sabbatical, please see my Beloved Community page. For worship info and sources, read on! - JE

 

The Illuminators Hope you're enjoying our January/February theme, The Illuminators, a theme that gives us a chance to speak to one another about what we often consider to be the frailties or negatives of human existence - meekness, grief, illness, death, fear - and to see those parts of our personalities and our experiences in a more positive light. All of these things can light our way home to wholeness - as individuals, as a church community, as a faith - if we allow and participate in the process. Here are a few sermon excerpts, and the sources that made them possible.
 
Sunday, 1/20/2013 - MLK Jr. Sunday - Rosa Parks
 

Call to Worship - You may not think the world needs you, but it does. For you are unique, like no other that has ever been before or will come after. No one can speak with your voice, say your piece, smile your smile, or shine your light. No one can take your place for it is yours alone to fill. If you are not there to shine your light who knows how many travelers will lose their way as they try to pass by your empty place in the darkness.

Reading - The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear.  - by Aung San Suu Kyi

excerpt from the Morning Message -

"Before King there was Rosa Parks,” then apartheid leader and later South African President Nelson Mandela later explained. “She is who inspired us, who taught us to sit down for our rights, to be fearless when facing our oppressors.”

We have many of Rosa Parks’ notes and journals. She asked herself the question, who will take the first steps? She always believed it would be the churches. She loved church. She would quote novelist Richard Wright who said that going to church on Sunday was like "placing one’s ear on another’s chest and hearing the unquenchable murmur of the human heart." In her case, that the churches would lead the charge in ethnic integration in America. In our time, what? For what will be sit down and refuse to be moved? For what will we use our meekest nature – for what will be we be quiet, humble, thoughtful, and so sure in our hearts that we are right that we cannot be moved? For what will you, in your life, get meeker, and meeker, quieter and quieter, until you overcome? For what as a church shall we do the same? Where is the arrogance that inevitably accompanies a culture as strident as ours taking us? Why aren’t the whiz-bang special effects working, and when are we going to realize that they never will? I’m tired of all the loud voices, and the accusations, and the glittery subplots that keep us all distracted and distressed. Why can’t we feed our people? Why can’t we eradicate the violence of guns and the twin oppressions of poverty and mental illness? When will our children be safe in school? When will our teenagers know only dignity and thus be known for making kind and gentle choices? What’s the long and thoughtful relationship we’re willing to have, the deep education we’re willing to submit to in order to be part of lasting change? In order to actually be able to sit in the silence and be part of what’s true? We should be exhausted by all that is happening, by all that still hurts and rings false in our ears, but our exhaustion is part of the answer. Maybe in our exhaustion we will finally have the strength to sit still and make things right. Because, it is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights.It has not been enough. We have to resist fear. Best done from a centered being and an open heart.

Let us not eradicate from ourselves what is quiet, and humble and private and even shy and a little bit stiff and formal. Let us celebrate it. Let us look to Rosa. Let us be meek and of good heart, and we shall overcome.

The morning message was inspired by, and all quotes are from, Rosa Parks: A Life by Douglas Brinkley....If you were there and heard the rest of the sermon you'll want to read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Sunday, 1-27-2013, Grief

Reading - Beannacht ("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O'Donohue ~

excerpt from the Morning Message -

....Death causes grief, and so does illness, but so does divorce, moving, growing up in a dysfunctional family, becoming addicted, recovering from addiction, losing your job, retiring from your job, watching that last kid leave home, losing trust in a friend, losing your faith…In fact, according to John James and Russell Friedman, from whom I learned the most about loss and grief, grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior and so grief is pretty much a daily part of life, because life is changing all the time. Relationships change all the time.

According to James and Russell, we are taught, in our culture, how to successfully acquire, but not how to successfully lose stuff. Praise, toys, good grades, friends, when we are younger. Acceptance, faith, good job, home and hearth and lovelife as we age. All of these are things we are taught that we need in order to be whole and happy. There will be much talk and celebration when these things are acquired in a life, but when they are lost, and they will be, we’re not so good at talking about that. Our reactions to one another often reinforce the cultural ideology that we should not even acknowledge loss, let alone become adept at dealing with it. Loss is embarrassing, even shameful. We say things to one another like, “What’s done is done….You have to move on……Don’t burden others with your feelings…Don’t cry….Get a hold of yourself…He’s in a better place…Time heals all wounds....and my personal favorite as of late: There are plenty of fish in the sea.” 

Most of us, by the time we reach adulthood, have internalized six unfortunate myths about grief: Don’t feel bad. Replace the loss. Grieve alone. Just give it time. Be strong for others. Keep busy. (James and Friedman)

Do these things and remain embarrassed about change, loss and the resulting grief. Do these things and we will trip around in our grief, carrying it like an old-fashioned coat that is too big for us. Carry a heavy heart around in your chest, one that feels more numb than anything, like the spirit, the breath, the life just can’t move through it anymore….Grief doesn’t have to be this way. Grief is a great illuminator. It can actually be that cloak of love that helps you mend and mind your life.

The first gift grief gives us is the opportunity to be honest. All relationships – with those living and those now dead, with parents, friends, children, beloved pets, places of worship or work or home – all relationships are both positive and negative. If you are getting all of one and none of the other, you are not in relationship. (Come see me). And what we want in the good and the bad is to be able to be ourselves and to be heard. When we lose a relationship, for whatever reason, this need remains. We want to have natural, honest expression in our grief. We want to rage, we want to cry, we want to stay in bed and give up, we want to ask questions, lots of questions, we want to laugh, we want to scream, but most of all we want to tell each other what we wish had been different, better or more. And we want someone to hear us say it. This part should have been different, and I’m sorry. This needed to be better, and I forgive. This part was really wonderful, it made my world, and I wish there could have been more of it. I feel that loss. It hurts me.

When C.S. Lewis’ beloved wife Joy Davidman – whom he wrote of as “H.” -  died he found himself drawn to and resisting the urge to make her perfect in his mind and his memories. Over and over again in his rage and his grief he returns to honesty as a balm for his pain. “H. was a splendid thing; a soul straight, bright and tempered like a sword. But not a perfected saint. An [imperfect] woman married to an [imperfect] man; two of God’s patients, not yet cured. (Lewis, 42).” As he reveals what could have been different, better or more in his much-awaited and all too short time with Joy, he finds that this honesty serves him well, “Looking back, I see that only a very little time ago I was greatly concerned about my memory of H. and how false it might become….And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering about it she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. I don’t mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don’t mean even any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account (ibid, 51).”

When we turn away from loss as embarrassing or shameful and turn to what could have been different, better or more in our relationship, the relationship ends but what we learned, what we loved and what really mattered we get to keep – those gifts meet us everywhere, palpable and insightful - and both the brokenness and the gifts make us whole human beings, truly aware, as Madelein L’Engle writes, “that that which has been created with love is not going to be abandoned. Love does not create and then annihilate (ibid, xv).”

This is the second of grief’s gifts to us: Love. Grief is the way we make sure our heart works. If you love you will grieve, and, thank all the gods, if you grieve you will love again. If you trust, if you relish, if you rejoice, if you long for, if you cherish, adore, triumph, succeed, build up and bind to you, you will also lose, and you will grieve, and then you’ll know that it was all true. You wanted to know, didn’t you, that you could feel all of that, that all of that actually happened to you? What an amazing life this is, and what an amazing person you are in it, that you could feel all of that, that you could participate in that much love, in that much fun, in that much hope and help and delight. When it changes and you fall from those heights, that’s when you know you reached them. Grief is actually what catches you, and sets you gently back on the ground. Then you have a choice – focus on the pain or fill up with the love. Here is grief’s third gift – did it happen to you, or did it happen with you, and what will happen now? Grief, the great illuminator, gives us repeated chances to be faced with playing the victim, to believe in our pain and sorrow that someone or something really has THAT much power over us, to MAKE us feel such and such a way, …..the repeated chance to choose instead to be vulnerable and thus to take responsibility, and remain active participants in our own destinies. To realize that change is inevitable – in ourselves, our partners, our communities, our church, our children, our home – and that all we have to do is acknowledge our regrets, ask forgiveness and give it, and move on to the next chance to love and to build. If we love, we grieve, if we grieve, we love again.

Do cry. When change comes, and you hurt, or you’re excited, do cry. In public, walking down the street, preferably and then we'll have a UU emotional intelligence revolution going on here...No, don't start there - start with a friend. At least cry and grieve with a friend. Let weakness overcome you, feel awful, allow yourself to be empty, don’t do anything to replace the loss, and just cry, cry, cry. Time will not heal your wounds, but this expression of your loss will. In ancient alchemy these tears of ours were part of the operation of solutio; they are the softening, the melting of all that is in us that has become hard and inflexible. They shed bitterness, and in doing so, they allow for wisdom. What could have been better, different, or more, my friend? Tell me from your heart. Because, in the same moment we were promised life and became that promise, we were promised loss, and grief became our guide. It is very old, and very wise, and wants nothing more then to guide us back to ourselves again and again. Let it light the way.

 Three wonderful sources made this sermon possible, and I suggest all of them for further reading, reflection, and grief recovery, as well as for referencing all quoted and paraphrased material herein.  Please remember that The C.S. Lewis work is theistic, so be ready for that. The Grief Recovery Handbook requires a partner.  I suggest that, whether you know it right now or not, you have a friend or relative who would be happy to join you in this work, but if you do not, I would be happy to be your listener.

The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James & Russell Friedman

A Grief Observed by C.S.Lewis

and to learn what I've used here about tears, and more, take a look at The Book of Symbols

January & February: The Illuminators

Check this out! Here's the link to our original inspiration for our deep winter theme of the Illuminators http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qcj-F_37HU

excerpt from Sunday's sermon:

...what the priests of Zoroastrianism believed was that God was all good, and that was and should have been enough to scare King Herod half to death. The star on the rise was one of theological and social revolution in which a great goodness was the ultimate power and authority. A great goodness, a care for the meek and mild, a sweeping love and acceptance of human nature as essentially full of light and hope was about to bloom in the world. If such a power had been made manifest, says Matthew, a power that id not depend upon military might, or the influence that extreme wealth brings, then the Romans would be hard-pressed to fight it. It's difficult to fight a power that connects human beings one to another, across boundaries and distinctions that used to divide them. It's difficult to fight something so good, so loving, that it need not fight back....

Reading from Sunday (Remember to bring in your own favorite poem about the duality of light and dark for our Poetry Sunday on January 13th!)

Lines Written In The Days Of Growing Darkness by Mary Oliver
Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

through the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

by Mary Oliver, from New York Times, Sunday, November 7, 2010

I am indebted to the fantastic leadership of our current Worship Council for the energy they’ve put into choosing this year’s themes, and especially for the input of Sarah Witte and Stew Guernsey who did so much to make these materials on “Belonging” readily available to me over the past few weeks. Thank you.

 

Reading – from Belonging: the meaning of membership by the Commission on Appraisal of the Unitarian Universalist Association. June 2011. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. All sermon quotes from the same

 

G. Peter Fleck, in the title essay of his book, The Blessings of Imperfection, makes direct reference to the lived life of organized religion:

           

            Well, let’s be frank and admit that the church has its aggravations. The eternal and oh-so-necessary concern about finances, the annually recurring problems of balancing a budget, or finding money for repairing the vestibule, repairing the boiler, and tuning the organ, the ongoing criticism of the ministers sermons, which are too liberal for some and too orthodox for others, too pedantic for some and too colloquial for others, the endless committee meetings about the Sunday School curriculum, and about the propriety of social action, the persistent shortage of tenors in the choir. Who wants it? Who needs it?

The answer to this question is that we…want it, because we need it. The answer is that the church, and I am now speaking of the liberal church, in spite of its shortcomings, the imperfection that characterizes everything made by humans, is better, infinitely better, than no church. Maybe I should not have said “in spite of its shortcomings” but “because of its shortcomings.” For isn’t it true that in our churches, in these communities of the spirit, we have more resources than outside of our churches to accept each other’s imperfection, to reconcile our differences, to forgive and be forgives, to comfort and to be comforted, to love and to be loved? Isn’t that what the church is all about – because it is what life is all about?

 

Morning Reflection – Rev. Jennifer Emrich

 

Belonging is a process. Belonging to anything is a process.  Whether we are speaking about the imperfect but necessary church, family, partnership, country or entire civilization to which we belong, becoming a member takes a long time, and requires much of us that we could not have guessed we even needed when we began our polite inquiries into the arrangement.

 

All initial inquiries are polite. Well, perhaps the screaming entrance of the infant into a family, whether born of the body or adopted from afar lacks the usual niceties we try to put on for one another, but other than that, when we first seek to belong to something, or to someone, we are putting nothing but our best face forward. And we usually see and receive nothing but the best in return. We become quite enchanted, with the church, the partnership, the family, the new company, the new presidency, what have you. Nothing can shake our resolve. Nothing can quiet our fervor.

 

Except, something will.  The Commission on Appraisal for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations tells us that “Community is a happy sounding word, and it is common for religious liberals to emphasize the ideal of community as a primary reason and purpose for the institution of the church. Such idealism has its place, but building an authentic human community is never easy and only fleetingly happy (p.9).”

 

As it goes for the church, so it goes for the world.

 

I have real concern about many of my friends right now, and many of you here in this congregation. I should take this opportunity to say that not all people in this congregation vote the same way. If you don’t know that, take care. We are a diverse group – Democrat, Republican and Independent. We don’t all agree about Marriage Equality, either, though our faith in that matter is clear. I will not do as our Catholic Bishop is doing and force you to spend long hours in prayer praying that my beliefs about marriage carry the vote on Tuesday. We’ll skip that this year. I will tell you that I marry people who are gay and lesbian and bi-sexual. I marry men who used to be women to women who love them….These weddings are a great privilege to be part of, all weddings are, but, it’s different when you’re performing a ceremony that is not actually legal. The parents of the brides or grooms are different. The tension in the room is different, the looks on the faces of the assembled friends and family when I stand up in my robes and stole, and I say, ‘By the power vested in me I proclaim you wed’…the celebration afterward – it’s all different. Someday I will miss that extra energy, that revolutionary buzz that flies through the ceremony, singing. Because I am not worried about Marriage Equality in Maine, or anywhere else. Marriage Equality in America is a done deal. Maybe not on Tuesday. Maybe not four years from now. But certainly I will live to miss that other energy, and to celebrate the new reality. I work with teenagers and young adults every week, folks. I hope we do this work for them, but if we do not, they will do it for themselves. Of that I have no doubt.

 

What I am worried about, and what I caution against, is despair. I’m hearing that word a lot. I don’t typically presume to tell others how to feel, but I don’t think despair is appropriate, I don’t even think it’s what we’re really feeling. I think we have to understand that we only truly belong to that with which we have become disillusioned, and lived to tell the tale. Disillusionment, that abrupt and uncomfortable experience of finding that that with which we are enchanted is, in fact, as flawed as everything and everyone else. It’s a paradox, because we feel like we belong to a church, a partnership, a country, a political movement, when we’re enchanted with it, when we’re “happy” about it, when it helps us float through our day, excited for what comes next. The truth is, we can’t even see what there is to belong to when we’re enchanted. Again, from our Commission on Appraisal: “the idealization of community is a ‘human wish dream’ that is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community it to survive…the congregation that is supposed to be a loving community is sometimes beset with conflicts. Decisions can be made with which we disagree. People can become disagreeable. The church is a human institution and sometimes it can become all too human. When such difficulties arise, some walk away, some step back. But fortunately there are those who remain steadfast through these times of disillusionment, whose loyalty grows beyond it. Out of their disillusionment grows a loyalty less to the institution and more to the values and ideals that the institution seeks to serve and embody. It recognizes that institutional as well as personal failure is inevitable. This is loyalty of a high order. It requires extraordinary patience, tolerance, and the capacity to forgive. These are spiritual gifts, learned in real community.” (CAUUA – p.11)

 

There are many relationships I have walked away from in this lifetime. Maybe you can relate.  Sometimes I have walked away out of emotional or spiritual immaturity. No doubt about it. Sometimes I have walked away because to do so is the act of emotional or spiritual maturity – we should not stay with people or in places that wound us body or soul. But, I belong to Unitarian Universalism, to the clergy, to the town of Yarmouth, to the state of Maine, to the United States of America. I belong to the First Universalist Church of Yarmouth. And, as far as I’m the mother of Max and Madelin, I’m an Emrich. I know I belong, not because all of these associations have brought me nothing but endless joy and contentment, but because all of these relationships and communities have failed me dreadfully, and threaten to do so again at any moment. I hold no illusions. What I believe in are the ideals and values that these organizations and partnerships promote and uphold, even when they fail to do so. (CAUUA – p.11) I am not always a graceful supporter, but I am a loyal one. I belong. I will still belong after I cast my votes on Tuesday. I will still belong no matter how the others I belong to and with vote, and whether or not their vote carries or mine does.  And no matter how the vote goes, I will not despair.

 

We must not despair over that which has been gained in the politics of the past that has allowed for the blossoming of civil rights in this country, the protection of the rights and lives of women, the progressive ground with which and in which our faith flourishes…despair that now, somehow, all is lost, or will be if the vote does not go a certain way. Despair terrifies me. It makes people walk away. It rends community in two. It will tear things down in a way no vote ever could….

 

The social justice for which we fight as people of a liberal religious faith is based on the social gospel. The social gospel tells us that we do not have to wait for divine providence to act itself out on earth. Rather, we are god’s hearts and hands and if we want justice to prevail we have been endowed with what it takes to create that heaven on earth. The social gospel is the most useful and prolific tool used to right what’s wrong in human relationships since the ancient advent of the Jubilee. But it has one flaw – it’s exhausting. And, I can see and hear in the past couple of weeks, it confuses disillusionment with despair.

 

Remember something beyond the social gospel, my friends. Remember the garden. Remember that we are all already standing on holy ground, on good, growing ground….It is not so much that we have to build a just world for all people with our own strength until it gives out, it is much more that we are already, as the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor likes to preach, already standing on the X that marks the spot where the treasure is buried. We get to illuminate this good news so that others may see and feel it. There is no failure in failure. When everything goes wrong, when things are hard, when there’s more to know about someone than at first meets the eye, when we are out voted or shouted down, and the abundance we know exists still plays out as scarcity that starves and robs real people, and yet what we believe in and know in our hearts to be true continues, and the place where we can keep talking and feeling and needing what we need still stands, that’s when we belong. The Rev. Steven Charleston writes:

 

It all begins with small numbers. A few more drops of precipitation, a little more wind, a slight rise in the sea level, a couple of degrees difference in the elevation of the moon. Great forces are born in small numbers, in the increments of existence, the mathematics of our physical being.

 

And as with the natural, so the spiritual. A tiny bit more kindness, a single hope, a small increase in giving, a few more prayers, another moment of patience. Great souls are not instant in being, but being made up of instants. Life without and within, lived in the small things that count.

 

 Every small thing you are doing to raise a healthy family, create a whole and healthy self, participate in this church, and invest in the civil rights of this country counts. There’s a Sufi parable that helps me take the long view of American Democracy, and of this incredible religious experiment that is Unitarian Universalism. It goes like this: “In one of the great court banquets, everyone was seated according to rank, waiting the entry of the King. In came a plain, shabby man and took a seat above everyone else. His boldness angered the prime minister who ordered the newcomer to identify himself. Was he a minister? No. More. Was he the King? No. More. “Are you then God?” asked the prime minister. “I am above that also”, replied the poor man. “There is nothing beyond God,” retorted the prime minister. “That nothing,” came the response, “is me.”

We are the humble force behind the powers that be. And in that we are everything. We choose a country and a faith in which there is no one coming who can reign on high in one regard or another, rescue us, solve our problems. We choose to solve them ourselves, and to face the disillusionment that comes with our foibles and failures as we proceed. If we are steadfast, and connected to the beauty that yet remains, and to the great good Yes! in which we believe, we shall belong to one another, in a community that has been tested, and is true. From here we shall do great good in small numbers, and in one generation or the next, prevail.

 

As Unitarian Universalists we have a covenant with our Association and amongst our churches. Often called “the Principles” this covenant ends with the words: Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. With this in mind, most ministers spend time every year on spiritual contemplation and retreat, study, reading, and continuing education.  This past summer, during my study weeks, I was out of the office, but I was working hard to read, watch, listen to, and analyze new teachings on theology, church management, stewardship, history, religious iconography and science. This time set aside for study and reflection in the minister’s year ensures that the understanding and vision of the professional leader, and all the lay leaders working with her/him does, indeed, expand.  Since it’s always fun to know what other people are reading, here’s a partial list of where my mind went this summer:

Quiet by Susan Cain…the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

The Three Marriages by David Whyte which will lead one to look up his poetry at http://www.davidwhyte.com/poetry.html

And speaking of poetry one of you loaned me The Human Line by Ellen Bass, and I can’t stop reading it!

Understanding the Bible by John Buehrens

A House for Hope – the Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-first Century by Rebecca Ann Parker and John Buehrens – so you’ll be hearing from the pulpit how our theology (yes, we have one J ) depends upon but also moves beyond the social gospel

What Money Can’t Buy by Michael J. Sandel

The Growing Church, ed Thom Belote

Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism with an intro by Conrad Wright

The Greater Journey by David McCullough, which, if one loves art, might lead to looking up http://www.johnsingersargent.org/, or http://www.marycassatt.org/, or http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_10A.pdf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Gould_Shaw_Memorial_-_detail.jpg, and then you’ll have to watch the movie Glory, which really is just a great film

And because I was in Romania with 11 amazing teenagers (and two patient and fanstastic First U adults!) this summer where we visited that place deep inside ourselves that demands justice against all odds…

Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt
Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonesca

Continuing education for the ministry is never confined to study weeks alone but continues throughout the year, based on the goals set by the Minister and the Board of Trustees, the interests and needs of the Worship Council, and the Minister’s own professional curiosity. This weekend I’m away in Philadelphia (actually, in Chester, PA – check THIS story out: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/14/philadelphia-woman-faces-600-day-fine-for-feeding-needy-neighborhood-kids/ ) studying at Widener University.  This part-time program of study – Human Sexuality Education – Super O.W.L. !! – is designed for working professionals, and, if I do it right, will lead to a PhD down the road. I’ve already gotten emails from other UUs who are graduates of the program and doing great work in the world, and for our churches.  In Yarmouth, stay tuned for an Adult RE offering of Adult O.W.L. (Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education) where we can explore in-depth the relationship between our bodies and our spirits, and talk more deeply about what I’m studying and why.

Many blessings, and I can’t WAIT to see all of you at the Maine Farm Supper on the 15^th and Ingathering on the 16^th. Warmly - Jennifer

 

Worship Update and Pilgrimage Opportunity...

For more about the Sr. Youth Mission Trip this past summer, join us for Partner Church Sunday on Sunday, September 30th at 10:30am and hear about the adventure, pilgrimage, work and partnership from the teens themselves!

I am helping to lead an amazing Sacred France pilgrimage in spring of 2013. To learn more go to:

http://www.invisibletemple.com/france.html

Faith In Action ...

Have you signed up to be part of our First U First Tuesdays at Preble Street Resource Center in Portland? We prepare and serve dinner to the hundreds of folks in the greater Portland Area struggling with homelessness. I'll be there in October and on through the church year, so sign up in the Gathering Room and join me! - Rev. J

Summer Greetings from Rev Jennifer

11 of our Sr. Youth went on mission this summer to our Partner Church village of Gyepes, Romania.  On their way to the village they took a pilgrimage to ancient and modern Unitarian sites – places that are sacred to our faith.  They’re looking forward to sharing their experience with you in a Partner Church Sunday worship service this fall. Until then here’s a little preview of what they saw, and what they did:

Day 1 - The beginning of the journey is beautiful – the mountain resort town of Sinaia in the Carpathian mountains. At this point we are in Romanian-speaking Romania. Teens who have been working on their Hungarian catch-phrases are trying to understand why they don’t work here.

Day 2 – The next day we travel further into Transylvania, to Bran Castle, aka “Dracula’s Castle” and learn the not-so-nice and all-too-real history of Vlad Tepes – “Vlad the Impaler”. In the afternoon we reach Deva, and the fortress which is our first pilgrimage site looms above the town. The grown-ups are beginning to wonder why the teenagers do not need to sleep at night, but when we catch them crowded together, terrified by the ghost stories they’ve stayed up telling each other, all is forgiven.

Day 3 – First thing in the morning we travel up the mountain to the fortress of Deva. We are “beginning at the end” for inside this fortress is the cell where the first great Unitarian preacher, Francis David, spent his last days. Francis David was lauded by King John Sigismund for his great oratorical skills, and progressive thinking, and together with Queen Isabella and Dr. Giorgio Biandrata they made Transylvania the first place in the world where religious tolerance could flourish. However, King John died young, and the next rulers were not religious progressives. They forbade Francis David, or anyone, to “innovate” in religion, upon threat of imprisonment and death. Unable to change his very nature, David proposed that prayer never be directed at Jesus, but only to the God to whom Jesus himself had prayed. He was immediately removed to the fortress at Deva – the furthest place one can be from the capital city of Kolozsvar and still be in Transylvania. We stood before the cell where he died, and each person paid his or her respects to this man without whom none of us would be here, together, claiming our progressive liberal faith, and our fellowship.  A few of us were in tears at the words David left for his captors to find: Neither the sword of popes, nor the cross, nor the image of death — nothing will halt the march of truth.

Day 4 – We are on our way to Kolozsvar, headed deep into the heart of Transylvania. En route we visit Gyulafehervar to walk and pray in the same church King John and Queen Isabella attended – a 1000 year old cathedral that is now Catholic. We then travel to “The Church of the Edict” in Torda, the very place where the first Edict of Religious Tolerance was issued in 1568. We can now feel as well as see the famous lithograph of Francis David preaching the beginnings of the Unitarian faith.  Tonight it’s on to Kolozsvar, and a chance to stay at the Unitarian highschool and seminary, and maybe meet the Bishop. The teenagers are beginning to wonder why the grown-ups cry so much and are ridiculously angry when all the signs leading into Kolozsvar are written only in Romanian, but when they find out there’s pizza for dinner, all is forgiven.

Day 5 – The Bishop spoke with us for over an hour this morning and we learned many things about life as a Hungarian Unitarian during communism, and now, in the aftermath. The Bishop has a big job! We wondered at how he does it, and stays so positive, and so willing to talk and laugh with all of us on a busy weekday morning. Then we visited First Church of Kolozsvar –‘the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen’, said more than one teen- and stood near the rock that Francis David stood on when he preached to the citizens of Kolozsvar and converted the entire city to Unitarianism.  We wondered what we could preach that would change our world so profoundly. In the afternoon we left the city to visit the famous “Alabaster Village” of Mesko. For those of us returning to Transylvania it was a beautiful thing just to be in one of the Hungarian Unitarian villages again.

Day 6 – Today was for fun – we went to the medieval walled city of Segesvar to walk, eat, explore the ancient and beautiful Lutheran church with its vast and complex graveyard, and shop for presents for our family and friends. Tomorrow we will get serious again as we travel to Marosvasarhely to visit the Cultural Palace, the unforgettable stained glass windows of which teach us quite a bit about Hungarian myth and legend, and to learn more about religious oppression during communism, the uprising that brought it down, and the complicated aftermath that Hungarian Unitarians (and other ethnic and religious minorities) are still living with.

Days 7-12 - We’re “home”: settled into the David Ferenc (Francis David) Unitarian Conference Center in Homorodszentmarton where we will live for several days and nights as we run the summer camp for children from Gyepes and Recsenyed, and help paint Gyepes’ community center. This is what most of us have really come to Romania for, and we are eager to begin. 

For the next several days we will breakfast in Szentmarton, then head to Gyepes for a full day of camp and paint. Right away the teenagers are in love with the people of Gyepes, the camp children, and, especially, the food. Yes, the teenagers confirm, Gyepes food is the best in the world – now if the grown-ups could please stop talking about it, all would be well…Camp is crazy and wonderful, and other work projects give our teens a chance to meet the Gyepes youth and work together. Church on Sunday and the singing of the Szekely Aldas goes beautifully – the Gyepes women and children had prepared 5 songs for us, and we were glad we had one to offer in return!

Day 13 – Leaving for the airport from Bucharest, where our Hungarian, once again, does us no good.  It was hard to leave the village, and it’s strange to be leaving each other, but we are eager to get back to our family and friends, and to begin the next church year and all the work we can do from home to further community development in Gyepes, and to deepen our partner church relationship with people we now know and love….Eniko, Tunde, Renata, Tomas, Sabe, Robi, Istvan …the list goes on and on.

Looking for that great sermon by Ken Nye? Check the Beloved Community Page to the left! - JL