First, a HUGE thank you to the fabulous Team Joy who organized last Saturday’s party… it was so fun!! Thank you, thank you to the Stewardship Team, the many volunteers, the musicians, dance, meditation and yoga facilitators, face painters, therapy dogs and their people, child care folks, those who brought potato toppings, and all those who attended and participated in the joy of UUSS!

Tomorrow will be the first day of Passover, and as April is National Poetry Month, we share this poem from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat.

Ready

“So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks upon their shoulders.” —Exodus 12:34

You’ll need to travel light.

Take what you can carry: a book, a poem,

a battered tin cup, your child strapped

to your chest, clutching your necklace

in one hot possessive fist.

So the dough isn’t ready. So your heart

isn’t ready. You haven’t said goodbye

to the places where you hid as a child,

to the friends who aren’t interested in the journey,

to the graves you’ve tended.

But if you wait until you feel fully ready

you may never take the leap at all

and Infinity is calling you forth

out of this birth canal

and into the future’s wide expanse.

Learn to improvise flat cakes without yeast.

Learn to read new alphabets.

Wear God like a cloak

and stride forth with confidence.

You won’t know where you’re going

but you have the words of our sages,

the songs of our mothers, the inspiration

wrapped in your kneading bowl. Trust

that what you carry will sustain you

and take the first step out the door.

With hope, and in faith~ Rev. Lynn & Rev. Wendy