Dear UUSS,

Ice encapsulates

Glinting beauty abounds here

Sometimes penguins fall

‘Walk like a penguin.’ We heard that advice our first winter here, and on our morning walks with our small shy dog Luna, we often sing that phrase to one another at some point when we notice icy patches. Cultural norms are often hidden like ice, you don’t know they are there until you slip up. Hospitality invites us to know what the cultural norms are and to make them explicit so that folks can know if they are really in the right place, if we’re really welcome. There are norms in our religious education classes, in different meetings, programs, as well as in our homes and families.

During this pandemic, we have been creating some new cultural norms. For example, some congregations are silent on zoom before the service begins. The two of us invited folks to say hello as people arrive, knowing that so many of us are yearning to see and hear one another. One is not better than the other. They are just different norms-or behaviors that a group of people have agreed are the way to be, explicitly, though often tacitly. In our work to change and live into the governance shift, we are noticing that there are a lot of norms that are not explicit until we bump into them or are hold-overs from the past that aren’t really serving the congregation’s mission. Moving like a penguin in the winter weather is wise as we are following the being with the expertise to navigate an icy world. Singing to one another as we navigate the slippery path of change may just help us get where we say we want to go. And if we do fall, that we be sure that our cultural norms include helping one another get back up and begin again in love.

In faith,

Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn