Ministry Days and General Assembly were wonderful and also surreal. This was our first plane adventure since March 1, 2020; our first time hugging lots of people whom we’ve not seen in real life (irl) for so long or had never hugged because we had met online; and everyone was masked all day so it was sometimes tricky to recognize one another.

Wendy serves on the UU Ministers Association (UUMA) Board and Lynn served on the Ministry Days Covenant Team and then as a chaplain after the SCOTUS decision and volunteered with #UUtheVote, so we had extra responsibilities in addition to attending the planned programming. Just as a congregation requires volunteers, so does our denomination, and these are meaningful ways for us to serve.

The bridge between Ministry Days and General Assembly is the Berry St. Essay. It is the longest running lecture series in the country. This year’s essayist was the Rev. Mykal Slack and he knocked it out of the park. Rev. Mykal also re-imagined the long held practice of a respondent or two to happen at the end of the presentation and instead invited folks to respond to particular parts of the essay and wove it through his presentation.

The UUMA has made it available via Facebook livestream here: https://www.facebook.com/uuministers/videos/358930106353845 If you don’t use Facebook, perhaps you might ask to watch it with a friend who does.

It is powerful and deeply moving. Rev. Mykal does not hold back in sharing the truths of his experiences and his wisdom about what this covenantal Unitarian Universalist faith requires of us.

We hope you’ll take some time this week to watch the Berry St. Essay and we hope you’ll take some time this weekend to view the video in the worship description. We are, indeed, connected, and depend upon one another more than we know.

In faith,

Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn