Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, please bless these seeds I sow
Please warm them from below, ‘til the rains come tumbling down

~ David Mallett

First, let me express my gratitude. When I landed in Evanston last May, I had every expectation that I would be headed back to Virginia in August. There, I had a job that I loved, but that I knew I could not keep doing. Here, I had my partner and, at not too great a distance, our daughter, and Margie’s family, and my brother and his family in Madison – but no prospect of a job, let alone a career. When I started attending at UCE, it was because I was in need of community, which I found in abundance. But in Bret, I found encouragement. As I described to him my spiritual path and sense of ministry, he helped me to discern a vocation and calling. And after I decided to apply for this position, he was a gentle but consistent guide on what has been a delightful but very challenging path. I have a buoyant spirit, but I know what a great gift it is to be taken seriously, and I am grateful to Bret for this. It will be hard, indeed, to bid him farewell.

But this is the task before me, before us: to send him on his way with a blessing, to wish him well as he faces what is next for him, and to ready ourselves for what is next for us. It is a time to plant, dear ones – and in order to plant, we need to dig in. There is much in store for us, much of which we cannot foresee. Still, it’s time to ready the bed in which we will sow our seeds. We have work to do together, and I am looking forward to it! Once our interim is with us, we will have their lead to follow – but in the meantime, we need to prepare the ground for their arrival!

One thing I’ve been digging into this spring with our Children and Youth Programs Team, our Learning Associates Team, and our Lifespan Learning Council, is the idea of growing UCE’s ministry with families. I have not been shy with folks about the fact that this is a growth area for me.  To be sure, I have been part of a UU family in my history, and this experiential memory is a help – but the world has changed a little since my 31-year-old was 3 and we joined the Elgin church together, and even more since I was 3 and attending the Palatine church with my folks. One thing I know remains the same, though, is that families grow best together with other families. I have in mind an herb garden, where basil and sage, dill and lavender, rosemary and chamomile grow all together, the contrast in foliage and flower showing each to beautiful advantage. To prepare the bed for this garden of families, I think we need to think about ourselves and one another as both seedling and gardener. To be sure, we need to re-think our inter-generational programs, and I am both grateful and excited that our Lifespan Learning Council has already taken on the tending of programs we have traditionally offered in the past, like our Passover Seder, and of new initiatives, like our Pi Day Celebration. But we also need to think of every one of us as tenders of our UCE families, and of our larger UCE family. And this, in my view, requires that we think beyond Sunday morning religious education, and even beyond, special intergenerational events, to engaging our children and families in worship, at coffee hour, and throughout the church activities of our week. One source of nurture in store for our beautiful garden of families is that the 0-12^th grade Sunday morning RE program will move to the Soul Matters curriculum in the fall – to the same thematic program that has informed our worship and the work of our covenant groups. This lifespan approach to curriculum will offer new opportunities for UCE members and friends of every age to talk with one another about what we are currently learning about ourselves, each other, and our world. We will be deliberate in the coming year about making opportunities for these intergenerational conversations outside of RE, so watch this space – and let us know what ideas you have, too!

These and other initiatives are in store as we complete this church year and turn to the one coming. I know that many of you have recently pledged, or revisited your pledge, to help nurture and sustain our community, and I am grateful not only for the confidence you have shown in not only our UCE staff and congregants, but for the commitment you have made to our denomination as a whole. I believe our communal faith is lifegiving, life-sustaining, lifesaving. This soil we tend, the seeds we plant, the care of our attention – these are what will grow our community, not only in size, or yield, but in rootedness. As Bret pulls up roots, let us dig in more deeply and consider not only what we will have to show our interim come August, but what we will have to show our settled minister in two years or to Bret, should he happen back this way again in five years, or ten. May each of us do the work at hand to nurture and sustain this community of faith, to tend it, as we have been tended to. May it be so. May we make it so.

© April 19, 2018