March 6, 2020

In a culture of “busy-ness” it is easy to develop an ambivalent relationship with time.

In our house, one of the ways that shows up is in the use of the words “only” and “already”. When we are feeling overwhelmed by deadlines and external demands, it is often “already Thursday”. When we are looking forward to some long anticipated weekend activity, it can be “only Thursday”. Sometimes this is the very same Thursday looked at from different perspectives by the same person.

I am looking at the Interim time at UCE through both of these lenses. Here it is, already March. The angst around extending the Ministerial Search process for an additional year seems to have abated and I am grateful to all of you who have put your time and energy into the work of looking at many aspects of your congregation’s life, claiming strengths and assets and embracing challenges. Without that willingness this might well seem like “only March”.

You have shown a willingness to engage in healing from past losses and disappointments and claiming the legacies of past ministries; you have taken up the task of looking at your committee and group structures and have begun the process of considering how structures might be made more healthy and sustainable. You have considered the value and power of UCE’s Mission Statement and some of you have been willing and able to witness to the power of that mission in your lives. There is movement afoot to strengthen the Religious Education program for children and youth and to increase the effectiveness and reach of your Caring and Pastoral Care efforts. And now you are about to welcome a new Director of Congregational Life to support some of these efforts as well as the work of the well-positioned Social Justice Council. And this is “only March!!”

The task for this month will be to look ahead. What are your dreams and visions for the future of UCE? This month in our Brown Bag Conversations and in as many places as I can show up, we will be engaged in what the song from the musical “South Pacific” calls “happy talk.” “You’ve got to have a dream; if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make that dream come true?”

Come to a Conversation; write me an email; tell me a story. If you have not been actively involved in this interim process, it is only March and there is time to claim your stake in the future of UCE.

Gratefully,

Karen