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Reflection -- February 15, 2006

 

What a gorgeous week! Night and day, full moon and clear blue skies lighting up blizzard blanketed trees.  Southern New Hampshire doesn’t get more beautiful than this.  Meanwhile, the winter Olympics go on in Turin, Italy and we celebrate Valentines Day.  Four years ago, after the last Winter Olympics, I gathered with Unitarian Universalist minister colleagues in Birmingham Alabama.  UU Ministers Convocations occur about every 8-10 years to assess the state of our profession and ministry.  The location in Birmingham also allowed us to visit the Civil Rights museum next to the church where four girls were killed in a bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963.  We heard from ministers who marched from Selma to Montgomery with Martin Luther King and were with Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb, when he was killed in Selma in 1965.  One of my colleagues offered a sermon in which she asked

how different and better the world would be if our youth aspired to an Olympics for community service.  How amazing it would be if service to the greater good garnered the same acclaim as any medal won in Turin!  Of course, serving meals to the destitute, visiting the sick and frail in hospitals, tutoring younger kids or welcoming people at the door of our church doesn’t surge adrenaline as much as a face down, head first 90 mph skeleton ride.  Living our affirmation that “Love is doctrine of our church and service is our prayer” is a quieter exercise, but it is one that takes daily practice nevertheless.  And we don’t have to wait until a medal ceremony to reap the rewards, because the rewards come more regularly in the smiles of human connection and trust built over time in our community- that we will indeed be there for one another in hours of need and days of joy.  There is no other community of lifelong learning and practice than a congregational community where people of all ages can step aside from the usual competitions in life, share their lives and practice love and service.  And that is why I am inspired again and again by the ministry we are doing here together at UUCM.  So it may be.  So it is. 

Love and blessings to you all,  Barbara