A year ago, we started on the adventure of revitalizing a congregation that was ready to move.  It has been a tremendous year – from outgrowing our chapel and moving into the larger sanctuary to hosting six different events during Taunton’s annual “Lights On!” festival (including a bouncy house and a reptile show in the sanctuary) we’ve had an amazing year of growth  and renewal.  One of the things I’ve been honored to see this year, and to be part of, is the birth of new relationships, connections, friendships and community.

Communities and relationships are amazing, unpredictable things.  I had a plan when I came to First Parish a year ago.  Who is it that says “Humans plan, God laughs”? We have achieved more of our goals than I dreamed of a year ago, but it has not been through my “plans.”  It has been through the initiative and dreams of the people and the community, and though all the ideas that people have come up with in community and built on with each other.  It has been through new beginnings, and renewal, and faith.

I thought that after a year of ministry here I would feel like our church was “settled” and that renewal would be a thing of the past.   What I’m finding instead, though, is that as our vision continues to expand, relationships deepen and our ministry grows, there is always a new time of renewal and rebirth.

The past year has been amazing.  If you want to see for yourself, watch the two minute video below that one of our members put together to see some of the changes.  I can’t wait to see what next year brings!

Strength to Love

Our reading this morning was from a book a sermons from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that he wrote largely in response from his role in the non-violent protests and marches that he lead during the 1960’s in the Southern part of the United States. The title of the book is where the title from this message came from, which is Strength to Love. It is a wonderful book, filled with his sermons and messages on how tempting it is for African Americans in the 1960’s, and indeed for all of us, to move to hate, and about how it takes in fact more strength to love than to hate.

It’s funny, if you think about it, because in our culture, “Hate” is something that is thought of as an emotion of the strong. People who hate are warriors – they kill and they dominate – when you hate, you often have the control in the situation. You are the one who is the angriest, you are the one that can do the most damage. You are the Terminator, you are the lone gunman, you, above all, are the one who is reeking with power. “Love” is something that we think about affiliated with flowers and bunnies, warm chocolate and Valentine’s Day. Random question Valentine’s Day is coming up: are there any of you here today who think of Valentine’s Day as a particularly strength-filled holiday? Not so much, right? Valentine’s Day is all about the flowers and the candy and the soft lighting. It is not a holiday about strength or power. And yet Dr. King argued, with a high degree of success, that love is more powerful than hate, more powerful than injustice, and even more powerful than fear.

Last year, I was at a retreat for ministers, where were supposed to work on facing our emotions. We did some exercises around emotions, and why we felt the way we did about things, and what those emotions meant to us. And then we broke up into small groups and did some rapid-fire questions about emotions – you know, the type that you see on a game show. “What was your happiest day? When was the first time you were afraid?” What makes you angry?” And the point of the exercise was supposed to be to go with you gut, not to say what you thought about or what you think sounds the best, but what is your first instinct. And when the question came to me, the one I was asked in a rapid fire way was “When was a time that you faced a fear?” And what popped out of my mouth was “The day I decided marry my husband.” And the reaction from the group was funny, I have to tell you, because half of them started to laugh, and the other half stared at me, horror-struck, thinking that I was somehow forced into an arranged marriage.

Let me put your minds at rest here. I was not forced into an arranged marriage, and the decision to marry my husband Eric was one that was entirely mine and one that I made with great joy. And it is one that I live with with great joy. But it was not easy. Some of you have heard me mention that when I was younger, getting married was not part of my plan. I had seen some terribly hard things happen in marriages and I was determined that I would not subject myself to the challenges and pain that marriage seemed capable of brining. But when I met my husband, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to live the rest of my life with him. I knew that, and that knowledge terrified me. Because I also knew that if I accepted that in my life, I was accepting the tremendous risk of pain and fear and loss. It was so hard. I had to look at these two options, squarely in the face, and decide which one would be the best option for me, for my life – would I let this man walk away and I would go forward by myself, as had always been my plan and would keep me safe from potential pain – or would I take his hand and walk with him, knowing that each day as I loved him more, I was accepting a richer life, but on that held much more potential pain. Loving is hard.

I’m glad to say that I took the stronger path. I knew I had to, because of the life I wanted to live, but I will be honest in telling all of you here that it was something that took a lot of strength for me to face my fears and accept that in order to live fully, I could not hide behind the fear of loss or change or difference. Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest and theologian who lived in the 20th century. He was a prolific writer, and was particularly interested in studying the relationship between human emotions and the purpose of our being here on earth. In one of his articles, he stated that “Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”

Years ago, I was given an example from a teacher of mine that I’d like to share with you today. He taught me that the proportion that we open ourselves to experiencing pain and fear is directly proportional to the love and joy we can experience. Take a book. Look at the binding, which has a middle and two edges. We can live in the middle, feeling just small pieces of joy, or we can move our lives to the edges, feeling love with passion and vim, and feeling pain in such a way that it can seem overwhelming. What my teacher taught us is that if you want to live with love fully – all the way over to the edge of the binding – you will also open yourself up to pain – living on the other edge of the binding. Many of us, myself included, are tempted to live in the middle. The middle is where it is safe, for us, for our hopes, and for our fears. But what Nouwen is correctly pointing out to us is that if we live in the middle, we are losing the best parts of life. The parts of life that in the last days, we look back on with joy and know that yes, we have lived. We have not let ourselves be ruled by fear and by the ideas of what-if, but we have followed our hearts and our dreams and taken the strength to love.

There are two kinds of love that we are talking about here, and it’s important for us to be clear about both of them and how they are related. There is the personal and there is the societal. Sometimes, we like to think that they are separate, because that way we don’t have to engage beyond ourselves. But the truth of the matter is that the love that Dr. King talked about – the love that the Black community must have for the White community even as they face off on terrible lines of injustice and hate – is the same kind of love that Nouwen is talking about in our own lives, with the people we know, with our children and our spouses and our co-workers and our friends. Hear King’s words again – “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love and do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.”

When I first moved to Boston, I worked at a homeless shelter for men. I worked under a hard-bitten Bostonian, who had been arrested dozens of times for his social justice actions on the behalf of the homeless, and whose brusque ways and sharp tongue frightened my Midwestern, Minnesota-nice sensibilities. The men in our shelter were struggling in one way or another, and there was very little about their lives that was easy. My boss showed me and my co-workers the ropes, in a very brusque way, and then then said as he was finishing up his talk, said “You can think what you want about these guys, and the lives they have lead and where they are now. You don’t have to agree with all of their choices. But if you can’t love them, you can get out now.” A man who was training with me, a young college student, raised his hand and asked our boss, “Is that really true? You think that we need to love them to wash the dishes and set out dinner and make sure the Pats game is on the the TV? I think we need to respect them, but who we love is our own business.” And our boss – the guy who broke up fights and swore constantly, got right up in this kid’s face and said “No, you are wrong. You don’t love them like you love your mother – I get that. But loving these guys means that you know that who they are matters every bit as much as who you are, and that you are willing to be changed by them. And if you can’t do that, you can’t be here. Because none of us are going anywhere if you can’t love.” The kid backed down, and he stayed working at the shelter with me for the whole year. And we talked later about what it meant to love men who were making choices that we didn’t always agree with, and that we wished were different. But at the end of the year, that kid was different. He was changed by the guys we worked with, and in June, he went to our boss and thanked him.

Loving isn’t always about chocolates and roses. It’s not even all about partnership and families. It’s about facing fears and living. It’s about knowing that there is so much that is outside of our control and that our lives will be hard, but that with loving, the joy will matter so much more than the pain. It’s about knowing that we all have the ability to love so far beyond ourselves, and that that ability can change everything. It can change fear and segregation and injustice. It can change the course of your life. It can change the course of the life of the child that you have taken into your heart and loved so much that her world is a more beautiful place because you love her. Loving is about facing the fears and living to the edges of the page.

So this week, I want to ask all of you to take on a new challenge, and it is a challenge I will take on with you for your homework. This week, I want you to find something or someone new to love. Not someone that is already in your life and that is easy – your kids or your best friend or your spouse – but something that you have not tried loving before. Perhaps it will be that person at work who you have not always gotten along with, but that you can open your heart to. Maybe it will be the new organization that is bringing forth hopes and dreams for the city you love. Maybe you will find a way to open your heart to love a person you know is alone, and who needs love. I want to be clear – this is not a call to, as my old boss said, love these people like your mother. But it is a call to be willing to be changed by them, and to open yourself to the joy and the pain of loving. To have the strength to love. May it be so.

This is from our altar this morning; twenty small candles in memory the children who were killed and eight large ones in memory of the adults.

Candles of Light

I chose our reading this morning – the twenty-third psalm – because it is one that endures. When so many things float from our minds and our hearts, there is something about that verse that stays with us, – to walk through the valley of shadow of death and fear no evil – that stays with us in good times and in bad. There is a constancy in those lines that is there in birth, in commitment, in love and in death. So we speak them here today.

The bulletin that many of you hold in your hands was printed before this Friday. The original topic of this message was chosen and written before this Friday, and where we are today is after this Friday. After the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut, after the deaths of twenty-eight people and twenty children under the age of ten. After terrible things that happened so painfully close to our hearts. Twenty children, six and seven years old. The pain is almost unbearable.

For those of you who are with us for the first or second time today, I want to especially welcome you. This is such a sad day, and a hard day. It is a day that I am especially glad to be here, and glad that you are all here with me, with us, with this community. In the face of tragedy, senseless insanity, having this community seems to matter more to me and I think to all of us – to know that we are not alone and that there is still goodness in the world. Thank you all for being here – giving us the chance to be together, to grieve, and to find support in each other, even if today is our first time to First Parish.

I had a hard time on Friday, not rushing to my kids’ schools to pick them up early. My daughter is three – she’s in preschool – and my son is five, in kindergarten. When I heard the news from Connecticut, my initial thought was shock. My thoughts went to – It can’t be true. Someone surely could not have gone into a school and murdered little children. No, please God no. And then as the news started to come out, the horror of the situation started to fall upon me. The thoughts of the teachers, working with children on how to read or learn five times six, to hear gunshots in the hallways. The thoughts of the parents, hearing about something happening at their child’s school and the horrible, terrible terror and agony they must be in. And then the children – the six and seven year old children, scared and crying and away from their parents and being killed. And then, of course, the horror of all of it came on in a whole new way as the only children that came to my mind were my own – my own sweet son and my darling daughter. And the thought of such a thing happening to them, and to me, and to our family and it was all I could do to stop shaking as I sat in the coffee shop, reading my morning mail.

I’ve read a lot of articles in the past forty-eight hours, and they talk about a lot of different things – about gun control and mental illness, about tragedy and family relationships. Some articles talk about how tragedy is part of life, and about how we are lucky in the United States that many things do not happen here like they do in Syria or Pakistan. I have read enough to make me thankful that I am not a politician and terrified that I am a mother.

I don’t know what the right steps are for us to take as a nation going forward. But I do know that what happened on Friday changed my life in a way, as it did all of our lives. For tragedy and pain does that. The reminder that there is so much out of our control, that there are no guarantees, that bad things happen to good people and in good places and in places that could be here, that could be us – those revelations are terrifying beyond belief. When my kids came home from school, I hugged them a lot. I picked up my son and I smelled his hair. I held my daughter so tightly that she wrapped her little arms and legs around me and buried her face in my neck, saying “Now I’ve got you as tight as you got me!” All evening long I held them, and cuddled them and kissed them. And I was happy and grateful and scared.

I was angry on Friday, and I’m still angry today. My education was marred by the shootings in Columbine, Colorado – those which many remember as the “first” of the school shootings. I was in college with people who were from Columbine, and whose lives were changed forever that day. I feel like ever since Columbine, there has been one gun tragedy after another and they keep getting worse and worse and worse until I can’t bear to think about it. Kindergarteners. Second graders. Six year olds. I fold my kids clothing and I cry, thinking about the mothers who would be doing that for the last time. I hold my kids and I brush their hair and feel their warm weight on my lap. I look at their smiles and the light in their eyes, and I listen to them as they talk about Christmas. I am so grateful that I have my babies and so angry that others children have been so senselessly taken.

I have a friend who has a good sense of humor. She wrote to me on Friday and she said “Thinking of you when I saw about the shootings. I have a good idea. Keep your kids home from school from now on and never let them out. This is a good plan because I love you and I love them and clearly this is the only way forward.” She ended her message with a little smiley face.

I did not pick my kids up early on Friday. I let them finish their day and I held them when they came home. But it was hard. There is a piece of me that wants to hold them and protect them and never let them out of the house again. There is a piece of me that wants to extend that protection beyond my children to my cousins and nieces and nephews and the children of my friends and all of the children here. I want to protect all of them and find a way to keep everyone safe. There is a piece of me that wants us all to lock ourselves away and never let anyone hurt us again.

But we all know, here today, as we have come together in community, that locking ourselves away will never be the answer. The answer can only come through living together, living out our faith and making the world brighter with it. I have a friend and colleague, Tony Lorenzen, who wrote about his experience of Friday in an article on his blog, and I’d like to share his words with you now.

“No one cries like a mother cries.  Twenty mothers in CT cried that way today.  I cried with them.  How, how do we go on preaching peace on earth and preaching the triumphant return of the light in the face of such darkness? Perhaps it is only by faith.  Only by an abiding trust that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot over come it. The Christmas and Advent seasons adopted and adapted the Pagan observances of the winter solstice. The imagery is the same – light after darkness, evergreens, fire, and the sun coming into the world.  Maybe it’s those roots of the season that need to rescue it this year.  The faith we need is the faith born of experience and observation that no matter how long and dark the night, the light always returns and the days always  get longer again.  It is the way of things. It is built into the fabric of nature in this existence.

Perhaps we have to return to faith in ourselves. Trust that the light within us is strong enough to pierce through the night, however dark, and that whatever we light we have to shine, as little a light as  it may be, is of great help and great worth.  It is too late for anything but to mourn and to grieve those who died today.  But now is the time to shine what light we have in order to dispel the darknesses of tomorrow. Should we not let our light shine, we may just be giving the darkness what it needs to assault us again.  The light we shine may not prevent every horror and injustice and pain of tomorrow, but without the light we do shine there will most certainly be more pain and sorrow than if we had kept our light hidden or to ourselves.” End quote.

Many of you will have heard today about the heroic actions of Victoria Soto, the twenty-seven year old first grade teacher who lost her life in Newtown on Friday. From what authorities can piece together, Victoria was ushering her six-year-old students into cupboards and closets when the gunman entered her classroom. She told the gunman that most of the children were in the school gym, and used her own body as a shield to protect the students not yet in the closet. She died protecting them, but students survived. You may have heard the story of Dawn Hotchsprung, the school principal at Sandy Hook elementary school, who was killed as she lunged at the gunman, attempting to disarm him and protect her school. There can be such goodness in humans, in people. Such goodness.

Terrible things have happened to our country and to our children, and it is a time for mourning. But we here today must do more than just despair and cry and hide away for the rest of time. We must do more than distance ourselves from pain and agony. We are still here. We can still lift up our children and love them, we can still kiss them good-bye in the morning and pray for their safety. We can thank our teachers and love them and bless them every day for the amazing work they do for our children and our country. And we can make a difference. Not only in the lives of our kids, but in this world. As I said, I don’t know what the right answer is. But I know that we must find a way to keep making the world a better place – a safer place, a place of joy and gladness and wonder.

For I believe that Tony is right. Without our light, individually and together, there will most certainly be more pain and sorrow than if we shine on brightly. So let us take courage, friends, and know that we are not alone. Let us take courage and make a difference in making the world a place safe for our children, safe for our teachers, and as full of joy as we can bring. Let us come together in the light and with hope, and know that this is not the end; that it does not have to get worse, and that with faith, all things are possible. Let us shine our lights, individually and together, with as much brightness and warmth and love as we can. Let us help make the world better, and bring love to the dark corners. May it be so.

It is hard to express the beauty that I saw in this drive.  Through connections in the community and the goodness of people’s hearts, one idea from one loving person grew into something  greater than any one of us could ever be on our own.

From the Facebook page of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Great South Bay, the distribution center that received our donations:

On Sunday morning a truckload of donations from the UU First Parish of Taunton arrived at the Sayville hurricane relief effort going on here at our new building. They donated everything from much needed electric heaters, industrial cleaning supplies, heavy duty garbage bags to everyday necessities like shampoo, toothpaste, diapers and boxes of canned food. We received such an unbelievable amount of new toys and fresh stuffed animals, that we will be needing Santa hats! Thank you Taunton for your generosity and beautiful hearts! We love you! ♥♥♥♥

May we all have a blessed holiday season.

Last week, we held a clothing and necessities drive for the hardest hit areas of New York.  We collaborated with the Taunton Fire Department, and were able to send down several bags full of warm clothing, blankets, toiletries and basic necessities. On Tuesday, I shared at the Women’s Business Network meeting that our clothing and necessities drive was finishing up, but that we were looking forward to collecting for the toy drive for Christmas.  Several people asked about expanding the drive to include different kinds of toys, and other needs the people in New York might be having right now, as they are struggling to rebuild.  I shared with them that though the church would be happy to help in any way we could, we were limited by the amount of things we could ship down.

Enter fate and angels in the form of Judy Witkowski.  Judy is an agent for New York Life, and approached me during a breakout session of our meeting.  ”I texted a friend of mine while you were talking.  He owns a moving company, and I think he would be able to help you and the church.  I’ll send you his information today.”

After a few voicemail and email exchanges, Judy’s friend Carl and I caught up.  He is a such a welcoming and kind person, it was a delight to visit with him!  As I told him about our drive, and about the needs of the people in New York, some of whom had four feet of water in their homes, he said without hesitation “We’ll be there to help.  Anything we can do.  We can commit at least five trucks and we’ll help take care of this.”  He is an owner of Experienced Delivery Systems, Inc., and is willing to give  of both his time and his company…….his generosity is such a gift!  It is this kind of person, and this kind of company, that makes the world a better place.

The donations will be going from our church in Taunton to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bellport, who have generously donated their space in Sayville to be a distribution center.  I’m also so grateful to their president, David Jarmula, for organizing all of this on their end.

Human beings are amazing.  AMAZING.  The destruction that was caused in New York and New Jersey by Hurricane Sandy is virtually unparalleled on the East Coast.  The images of those days, with the water rushing into the subway stations, and the houses being turned on their sides – it’s not something I’m going to forget any time soon, and it still fills me with sadness.   I’m so profoundly grateful that our community here in Massachusetts is willing and able to give to our friends and neighbors.  This is the goodness and greatness of us – what we are able to do through giving, and through truly being part of something greater than ourselves.

So let’s move together, friends!  To find more specifics of the drive, including drop-off times and needed items, check out our News and Events Page.  Let’s fill those trucks from Experienced Delivery Systems and help lighten the load of our neighbors this holiday season!

But let’s be honest.  Growth does not happen magically.  There was thought put into our growth, and a decision made on the part of the church that we had both a theological and moral responsibility to grow.  Our spiritual community has changed a lot in the past few months, and will continue to change as we develop, becoming an ever-more vibrant and relevant home for more and more people.  It’s a tremendous thing to be part of – so tremendous that I’m even having a hard time putting the joy and excitement into words! – but it is something that we know we cannot do alone.

So a few months ago, we decided to ask for help.  We went to Paul Nickerson, a veteran church coach, and person who I worked with when I was re-starting the First Unitarian Church of Norton.  And through some conversations, we came up with idea of hosting a Growth Conference at First Parish Church in Taunton.

To say that I’m excited about this conference would be putting it REALLY mildly. I’m excited about what we will learn from Paul, and about how the Vitality Team that will come out of the conference will support us in the year to come.  I’m excited about how this can help our church grow and develop in sustainable, healthy ways.  And I’m THRILLED at the idea of  sharing this learning opportunity with my friends and colleagues!

As of today, the registration for the Growth Conference is officially open.  Registration is through Eventbrite, and all you have to do is click here, and you’ll be brought right to the site.  Feel free to contact me with questions, and I look forward to seeing all of you in October!

It’s a good question.  Churches have been around for so long, one might think that they have always been here and will always be.  As those of us in the business know all too well, however, churches (and any religious institutions) do not have guaranteed financial survival.  I explained to this young woman that churches run off of charitable donations, otherwise known as pledging, from people who are part of our community.  She remained confused and asked “Is that what people put in the basket on Sunday mornings?  That’s where all the money comes from?”

I couldn’t help but smile at that point.  It would be so awesome if we collected enough on Sunday mornings to support all the work and ministry of the church.  How simple that would make life!  But the reality is that the Sunday morning offering is just a small section of our budget, and that the majority of our funding comes from our members, friends and other members of the community through pledging.  I explained to her that each year, churches hold what is called a “pledge drive,” where we ask everyone who is part of our community to commit to giving a portion of their income to the church for the next year.  From the pledge cards, we are able to know how much money to expect in donations for the year to come, and create the annual budget based on what people have volunteered to donate.

It was a timely conversation for me to have, since this Sunday is the kickoff to our pledge campaign at First Parish for the 2012-2013 church year.  I’m really excited about this year’s pledge campaign, mostly because there is such energy and capacity in the church!  I’m also excited, though, because we have been given a wonderful challenge and gift this year from an anonymous donor who has agreed to match all of the funds we raise, dollar for dollar, during this year’s pledge campaign.  This means that all of the donations made this year will literally be doubled!  It is a tremendous opportunity, and I am confident that our community will rise to the occasion.

As I explained all of this to our guests earlier this week, their eyes grew wide.  ”You mean, a church has to run things like a business?”  one of them questioned in disbelief.  ”You have to have income and expenses and salaries and everything?”  I nodded.  Surprisingly, she smiled.  ”That’s so cool.  So this church really is about being for the people and by the people – a real community.”

The woman on the other end of the phone did not share my excitement.  ”But you’ve been on our LIST” she said flatly.  ”I’m sorry you don’t want to be any more.  Even if you are Unitarian Universalist now, you might change your mind.”

I felt there was some kind of miscommunication going on between us.  I explained as clearly as I could that I was highly unlikely to convert to being a Baptist any time soon, since I was a minister in another faith, and that though I had a great deal of respect for the Rhode Island Baptist Women’s Group, I was emphatically not one of them and never would “come back.”  Particularly since I was never there in the first place.

This all got me thinking about what it means to be a member of something.  Some of my memberships I take very seriously – the membership to my college alum association (I love my college), for example, and my membership to the UU Minister’s Association.  Others mean less to me….like apparently my membership to the Rhode Island Baptist Women’s Group.

I think for membership to be relevant, three things have to be present in the relationship:

1). You have to care about the organization you are member of and contribute to it through time, money, skills etc.

2). The organization has to care about you and value you as a stakeholder, even if they do things you don’t always agree with.  You have to be valued.

3). The organization has to be relevant to your life and meaningful to you.  Otherwise, the membership is pointless.

How do we keep our memberships reflecting who we are in living into our best selves?  And what do we as churches do with our “members?”  What does that word mean in the context of a church whose goal it is to help people become their best selves and live their spiritual lives to the fullest?

Our beautiful church. We don't fill the sanctuary yet, but we will!

Today I led my second service at First Parish Church in Taunton as their minister.    It’s almost shocking to me how comfortable and at home I feel at First Parish, and how the pieces of our ministry are coming together in ways that I could never have imagined.

Easter can be  tricky holiday for Unitarian Universalists.  Since we don’t generally believe that Jesus died for our sins, and was resurrected for us to be saved, there sometimes is a bit of “what’s this all about?” the comes together on Easter morning for me.  But this year, the message of re-birth that is a part of all of us feels so true to me – so tangibly real – that I believe I have come to a new understanding on what Easter really is all about.  It is truly about the re-birth of all of us, about the chance for all of us to acknowledge that we have made mistakes in our lives, and that we can start over, just as we do every year in the springtime. We all have the chance to be reborn – as friends, as parents, as brothers and sisters, and as spiritual beings.   This Easter Sunday was a day of re-birth, and it was glorious.

And for those of you who could not join us this morning, a little taste of our music this week……….have a listen!  Nothing like five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes to help keep things in perspective.

It is a wondrous time.

Then……

I received a letter at my home a few weeks ago.  It was from an attorney who the Parish Committee of Norton had hired, and it notified me that when my contract with the church expired on May 1, they would not be renewing it.  Further, it appears as though the Parish Committee has decided not to formally meet and therefore allow any of the new people to become actual members of the church.

When I first received the letter, all I could think of was “this must not be over.  We are onto something here, and something beautiful is happening in this community. It simply can’t be over!”  For a short period of time, my vocational path was clouded, and with it, the future of the spiritual community we have been building.  I had felt so sure, you see, that this church, at this location in Norton, was the way to bring about a version of vibrant, transformative, Unitarian Universalist faith.  But as I started to talk to people – people who have been part of the Norton community and the Unitarian Universalist community, and the people who are interested in what we have been doing in Norton – a path opened that I never would have expected a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, I signed a contract to become the full time minister at the First Parish Unitarian Church in Taunton.  First Parish Taunton is a small congregation just seven miles away from Norton Unitarian.  The Taunton church has been following the Norton re-start with interest, and even spoke to one of our denominational officials last fall about possibly doing a similar program in Taunton.  They were in search for a minister who could help them grow their congregation, and who was tuned into how to reach those who are “spiritual but not religious.”  They are delighted to welcome in our members from Norton, and to continue to grow the church into a welcoming, spiritually based community for the twenty first century!

When I first began the conversations with First Parish Church in Taunton, I was excited about the idea that our church re-start would not die. As I have continued to speak to their governing board and learn about their community, I have become truly convinced that moving our congregation to Taunton is the calling of our church community. Not only are the people in Taunton excited and welcoming, they have a large, up-to-date building, including all kinds of fancy assets that we don’t have in Norton, such as a telephone, and more than one toilet. They have several rooms for their children that have doors on them, rather than an outside door leading straight into a parking lot, and they even have computers!

They also have some staff, which means that I would be able to do two things – stop taking out the garbage myself, and allow me more time to take the next step in our ministry. You see, the goal for us before starting weekly worship in Norton was to reach a critical mass. I’m delighted to say that with addition of the people from the Taunton congregation, we have met that goal, will be able to begin having weekly worship when I start my ministry there on April 1.

It is the sort of story that you can’t possibly imagine, and yet when it does, it seems like it was all meant to be.  I’m so excited for this move – for the new opportunities for growth and creation, and for all that this congregation can become!