Happy August everyone and Happy Anniversary!
We have had a bit of time to explore the area and do a few activities to help us have a slightly better sense of this place that we’ve moved across the country for. (For those of you newer this summer to UUSS, we moved to Schenectady from ‘upstate’ California and began our shared ministry with this congregation Aug 1, 2017.)
We have spent quite a bit of time studying governance-both the Bylaws and Board Policy Book, as well as the Governance text by Dan Hotchkiss that the leaders of this congregation have been using to make this governance shift. We are heading into year 3 together and it is quite interesting to see what progress the Board of Trustees as well as the Congregation have made and to see which things we all still haven’t quite leaned into or figured out yet.
We have camped a couple of times, hiked a bit, attended an outdoor play and a few concerts in different venues. Hamiltunes was a blast in Central Park (esp. because we LOVE Hamilton). We were the first stop of Wendy’s cousin’s Rt. 66 cross-country adventure, and have shared time with other friends and family. We finally got our library cards, and enjoyed exploring the many resources there. We have spent quite a bit of time working on the worship schedule for the new fiscal year, juggling the various schedules that exist in the wider UU world as well as family functions, holy days and holidays, and as always, asking ourselves what is best or most needed for the health and flourishing of UU Schenectady at this point in our journey together.
Next week, we are blessed to have a week in the Adirondacks and we will have a mini-retreat with colleagues as we prepare ourselves for the ministries ahead in a world, at least in part, which seems hell-bent on perpetuating fear, destruction, violence, racism, and oppression. Our hearts, of course, go out to the families and communities of those in TX and OH, and also in Chicago and Oakland and Albany and every other place where gun violence wreaks havoc on communities and families. Not one more. What needs to change in each of our lives for that statement to become a priority? Not one more death. How might we enact laws for a saner, safer, country and still honor the essence of the 2nd amendment? And this phrase is also part of healing addictions work-not one more overdose. And then there’s the violence at the border. Not one more child in a cage. Our hearts break. Our minds race or withdraw with the pain of it all. You are not alone. Remember your spiritual practices. Take a nap. Come to worship and sit and be nurtured in a community that cares deeply about many of the things you do. Come and breathe together and raise your voice in song and listen and connect with the larger Love that holds us all. This self-care may allow a bit of ease, a bit of healing to prepare us for what’s next.
What we as a nation has been doing isn’t working. What creative solutions might we discover when we move out of the arguing and debating and lean into shared compassion for one another’s perspectives, intent on solutions that make our southern border hospitable yet boundaried? that provide mental healthcare as part of the everyday norm for all of us? that grapple honestly with the causes of addiction? that put some reasonable parameters around access to weaponry?
May some answers and perhaps more questions, emerge for us all.
In faith,
Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn