Greetings, dear friends,

In our Unitarian Universalist tradition, the first Sunday after Labor Day often marks the “start” of a new church year. In a common ritual variously called the Water Service, Communion or Ceremony, we each pour a few ounces of water into a shared vessel, marked by silence or with a few words to let others know what this time away has meant, and our hopes for what might come. We might ask for someone to be held in loving prayer.

No one will argue that this past year and a half has held many unexpected challenges: interruptions from routines we cherish or once took for granted have required us to be flexible in our schedules, to stretch into new understandings of the meanings of compassion and empathy, and a constant redefining of “normal.”

I know I am not alone in hoping for a familiar routine to begin our year together. There is a loss in not being able to gather in person. Yet I ask you what you might learn from this change in pattern, this separation from one another, that we hoped lay behind us?

Please search for new and inventive ways to keep in touch with one another. Join our Sunday services and other church activities via Zoom. Pick up the phone to have a chat with someone you miss, and let them know. Write a note or letter to someone and let them read about your latest adventures from home.

We are a gentle powerful resilient people. When we share our deepest hopes and dreams and fears with one another, we create new paths that can help others find their way.

“See” you on Sunday!

In Faith,
Rev. Sally Hamlin