MEL/ROSE MUUSING
September 09
August and
September always feel like the detail time of the year. The Leadership Council
meets to assess where we are as a congregation, and to set our short-term goals
(doable between now and next summer) and longer-term goals of 3-5 years.
Worship Associates meet to help us plan Sunday services and special services
(such as Christmas Eve). Families and friends gather at Kanawha State Forest
for re-connecting and friendship and s’mores before fall Sunday School classes
begin. The Committee on Ministry assembles and helps us plan ways to be
accountable to one another and the overall UUC mutual ministry (ministry being
defined as all that we do together – including the little details).
We look forward to resuming a favorite
activity that doesn’t need much by way of details – the Tuesday lunches with the
ministers, which start again on Tuesday, September 15. We enjoy the informal
connections that happen around the lunch table with whomever shows up. (Bring
your own bag lunch and whatever is on your mind; coffee is provided.)
Priority – Being a Good Institutional
Neighbor
We will share the short and long-term
goals generated during the Leadership Council at another time. However, there
are a couple of priorities to muuse over with you in this month’s column. A
recurring goal each year is that UUC be a good institutional neighbor to our
West Side neighborhood. To that end, Mel is part of a group of West side clergy
and leaders advocating to insure community involvement in the new West Side
Elementary School on the corner of Florida Street and the Boulevard. UU’s
highly value education and learning .
The school needs Westside parents,
grandparents neighbors and friends involved with the school and engaged in
planning educational approaches and activities. As the school becomes a
reality, there will be roles we can choose to take on, such as reading to the
students on a regular basis.
Both of us have been involved with the
planners of the second annual OktoberWest, (a take-off on Octoberfest) which
will be a fun and festive day Saturday, October 3. UUC has been asked to host
the pumpkin painting activity from 10am-3pm that day. Everyone who volunteers to
help receives two free tickets to the afternoon Beer Garden. Please see the
article elsewhere in this newsletter that gives more details on how you can
participate in this event.
Priority – Practicing Hospitality at
UUC
Helping with the pumpkin painting is an act of hospitable outreach to the
children and their families in our neighborhood. For the rest of our muusing we
want to emphasize the priority of practicing hospitality with each other, with
those who visit us, and in how we treat our buildings and grounds.
There
is a biblical saying, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for
in doing so, some have entertained angels unawares.” [Hebrews 13:2] Let’s
not get hung up on defining who an angel or a stranger is, but take the idea
that we don’t really know what goes on in the lives of people before they arrive
on Sunday mornings (an unexpected death, a new love, a disagreement with a
partner, a child’s joyful beginning at a new school, the sun and rain of life–
so let’s treat everyone like angels because we never know who’s feeling
strange. You can figure out what “angel treatment” is for yourself. It likely
includes being friendly, considerate, respectful. And let us remember that our
visitors, who we may think of as “strangers” may sometimes think that we are the
ones who are strange!
Often, hospitality (not the devil) is in the details. Part of hospitality has
to do with responsible caring about our space, an area of care that needs
improvement in several ways!
Some of our
chairs are rather stained and grimy. We’re getting them cleaned. If you spill
something on them, please take the time to get a sponge from the kitchen and
blot it up.
Frequently, it feels like there is the sense among too many of us that, “the
congregation” will take care of “this” (something that is out of order), with
the result that we, your ministers come into the building to find such things as
dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter, supplies taken out but not put
away, or chairs not put back in order in the sanctuary. Remember, “the
congregation” is not some faceless institution, it is all of us, and we are all
responsible for maintaining our religious/spiritual home.
Other groups also use our building,
and they deserve to come in and find their reserved meeting space in an orderly
condition. Because we as your ministers feel responsible for having hospitable
space for UUC meetings and groups coming in, we find ourselves picking up cups
and mugs after Sunday services, washing dishes we find piled in the sink,
putting things away and straightening up chairs. It’s really not the best use
of our time. Our sexton is part time. He keeps the lawn looking good, mops and
sweeps regularly, empties trash, but cannot do much more on a weekly basis in
the time he has. Please take time to look around as you leave, and if you’ve
taken something out, be the part of the congregation who will take care of
“this” by putting it back.
Hospitality, for us, includes having a secure building. That may sound
contradictory to “entertaining strangers,” but we want to make sure “strangers”
don’t have the opportunity to entertain themselves by simply walking through an
unlocked door after everyone has left. We need to be present when we practice
hospitality to our “strangers;” and we want everyone – members, regular
attenders, visitors -- to feel physically safe when they are here. Sometimes,
we’ve locked the front door on a Sunday after coffee hour when most people have
gone and we’ve had to leave, only to return a little later to find it unlocked.
The front door has a push bar, so you can always open it from the inside. If
you unlock it for your convenience, please re-lock it when you leave. Also,
make sure it’s fully closed behind you, that you cannot pull it open after it’s
locked. If you are the last to leave please make sure the Vine Street door is
also locked and the thermostats in the hall and sanctuary properly set,
according to the directions posted below them. “The congregation” – all of us –
cannot afford high heating and cooling bills.
Earlier, we defined ministry as all that we do together. We invite you to
consider these details of hospitality and others that occur to you as part of
our mutual ministry, of our looking out for one another, of contributing to our
ongoing and long-range goal of creating a beloved community for and with each
other and all the strangers and angels in our midst.
Thank
you! We’re excited about beginning our eighth year of mutual ministry with you
and seeing what unfolds – the planned and the serendipitous.
With love,
~ Mel and Rose
June 09
The splendidly summery month of August is named after Gaius Julius
Caesar Octavianus, the first Roman emperor, the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar,
and his heir. Augustus, or Octavian as the Romans called him, saw a lot of
changes to his country during the years of his life -- from 63 BCE (before the
Common Era) to 14 CE (Common Era). He was a leader of the wars within Rome,
defeating the faction that supported Antony and Cleopatra. This victory gave
him control of all the lands of the empire, which led the senate to name him
imperator or emperor and to give him the honorary title of Augustus. As the
one in charge, he consolidated Caesar’s conquests, restored civilian rule to
Rome, built roads; and, of course, reformed the tax system.
To be august is to inspire awe, to be majestic or grand – sounds
like the West Virginia Hills! We always appreciate August as that month where
summer comes to fullness – the fruit ripens, the leaves are at their greenest,
everything peaks; and then begins the transition to autumn.
We wish all of you a splendid, August. The worries of the world
will always be with us, but let us remember that the beauties of the world also
surround us. Whether you have vacation or are working, we hope you will take
time to pause and take in this grand month, to get out and breathe in the scents
of summer, and to appreciate the beauty that is always available to us.
In that spirit, we offer these words from our Unitarian ancestor,
Henry David Thoreau, from his book Walden. For us, he captures the
spirit of August:
“I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often
did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the
bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or the hands.
“I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning,
having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till
noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in
undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sung around or flitted
noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or
the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the
lapse of time.
“I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far
better than any work of the hands would have been…. Instead of singing like the
birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.”
May the summer days of August restore your souls.
With peace and love,
Mel and Rose |
Unitarian
Universalist Congregation
