Home

Stone Soup

Welcome Back!

“I’m all for progress; it’s change I can’t stand!” - Mark Twain

Welcome back to this progressive community!

Humanist Dale McGowan gave the Fahs Lecture at the UUA General Assembly in June. He said that the amazing thing about liberal religion (as opposed to conservative religion) is that it is all about conserving progress and change. Rather paradoxical...and yet, isn’t that what we love about this faith? Open minds and open hearts are bound to let the spirit blow ‘where it listeth’, and spirit...well, it’s simply unpredictable.

Welcome to a community that embraces change!

There are lots of changes happening at UFP. Our ministerial intern, Ric Jones, begins his two years with us this month. Our Social Justice Group has challenged us to commit to some deep learning about Indigenous issues and our own racism. Our Religious Exploration Program starts off the year with a new curriculum for our K-2 children, a program called Spirit Play. And, we turn FIFTY this year.

The Last is Never the Last

I write this while still high on our ‘last’ service of the church year. We had an incredible morning of celebrating...singing and dancing and eating together.

But of course this wasn’t our ‘last’ service. Though my vacation lies within sight, my mind has already turned to what comes next here at the Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough. We have at least four big things happening in the coming church year, and for a pretty small congregation, a lot will be expected of us. I got to thinking...hoping really...that our theme for this past year, “How Shall We Live”, might help us to navigate all that is to come.

Over the year, we looked at living generously and with gratitude, living with imagination and amazement, living with commitment and courage. We talked about how we might live ethically, and justly, and hopefully, as well as how to best live together.

Even Ministers Make Mistakes

On Mothers’ Day, our Story for All Ages was a book written by Judith Viorst entitled My Mama Says There Aren't Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things. In the story, a boy reasons out that if his mother is wrong about some things...and she sometimes is...then she might be wrong about there being no zombies, ghosts, vampires, etc in his closet or under his bed. How can you trust someone when they sometimes get it wrong?

Even mothers make mistakes sometimes.

Caring for One Another

Almost every day I hear some word of gratitude for what this community means in your lives. Some talk about the connections they make here and about how they feel accepted. Some express that they got a surprising amount of support after lighting a candle about a sorrow. It is quite common to hear that this community just ‘feels like home’...a place to belong and a safe place to walk a spiritual path.

But I’ve also heard it said that we’re not all that great at caring for one another. I can only guess at what this means, but the fact that it’s been spoken at all most assuredly means that there are those who have felt - during times of crisis, transition, illness, etc – that they didn’t receive the care or support that they needed. They expected more. They expected more of us.

This is troubling. Yet, we do have the resources to care for one another. Ours is a shared ministry, and each of us can offer some kind of care and support. Let me offer a few ideas; feel free to add your own!

 

We Are Our Worship

My family is stuck. We can’t find a workable date for our annual reunion. It seems sacrilegious to choose a date that will leave someone out; it simply won’t be a family gathering without everyone present. While we didn’t choose to be members of this family, to be a Stoneberg is to share things that make up who we are...genes, experiences, commitments...things that bind us together. So, when any of us has to miss a gathering, an opportunity to grow and deepen our ‘Stoneberg-ness’ has been lost.

The State of the Fellowship

They say that once something has happened twice in a Unitarian context, it has become a tradition... apparently because we are always on the move, evolving, we have to claim tradition wherever we can find it. That said, I have now given two January “State of the Fellowship” sermons. This is now a tradition at the Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough.

This year, I put the “State of the Fellowship” sermon into the frame of ‘story’. The theory is that the stories we tell, and the stories we believe...about ourselves, our communities, our nation...are self-fulfilling prophecies. We create these stories out of our experiences and what we’ve been told, but to use them to our advantage, we need to stay cognizant of the stories we tell, and be willing to re-author them when necessary.

A Letter from Jesus…

A few weeks ago, I caught a television news story advising where to send letters to Santa. It promised that, if children use this special address, their letters would be answered. It made me wonder who ‘helps’ Santa with this huge task. Who pays for all the postage? And, what does Santa reply? Certainly not with assurances that all requests will be honoured?

Letters to Santa are rather like petitionary prayers, prayers that begin with “please” and often contain promises of good behaviour. The holiday season encourages us to wish and to dream, to ‘be good’ in hopes that we will get whatever it is we need. Do we expect these prayers and letters to be answered?

Well, this week I received a letter from Jesus. It must be real because it came to my email address and clearly claimed to have come from the Lord himself. In it, Jesus was letting off steam about some things that bother him about how we do Christmas.

Let's Talk

Have you noticed the little blurb in the past two newsletters suggesting that you watch for an invitation to talk?  Have you wondered, even a tiny bit, what that’s about?

For several months now, I have been talking with the Committee on Ministry (Ed Adams, Ian Attridge and Martha Comfort) about how to gain some meaningful insight about the heart of this community.  It’s rather paradoxical that I spend most of my work time alone, even though I have been called to serve a congregation of people.  Frankly, I need your input to more deeply understand our communal vision and longings. 

So, I, along with the Committee on Ministry, would like to talk with all of you.  We’ve scheduled three “Community Conversations” and are asking that each of you to come to one of them.  The dates are:

    Nov 10, Tuesday, 7pm, at UFP 
    Nov 22, Sunday, 11:45am, at UFP 
    Nov 27, Friday, 5:30pm, at my house (478 Albertus)

Here are the questions that we’ll be considering: 

Bumping Into One Another

In seminary, I went out on a very uncomfortable limb, and took a dance class (the title of which escapes me... something about “Dancing as Spiritual Practice”). In that class, we often did free movement exercises, moving this way and that, criss-crossing the floor. When we accidently bumped into each other, we were instructed to say “thank you.” “Thank you for touching me.” “Thank you for acknowledging my presence.” “Thank you for shaking me loose.” Our natural response, usually, is to apologize or to ask for pardon. To respond with gratitude when bumping into someone seems unnatural.

How Shall We Live?

I will always remember a conversation I had when interviewing for a previous ministerial role. It was with an engaging, successful, professional woman…a woman who was seriously involved in the life of that congregation. She was grilling me with questions…I’m sure in the interest of finding out if I would be the right minister for her…then said: “I belong to this congregation because I want to be a better person, and I believe that coming here helps me to do that.”

Wow. What a tall order for a community! If this is what we expect, then it means that we all need to play a role in helping one another to be the best that we can be…always learning, always growing, always challenging ourselves to be more open, more understanding, more compassionate, more generous.