The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
Letters from the Uniter newsletter
A letter from our minister, the Rev. Liz Lerner
I just finished two books that I’ve been reading while I’m sick: Here If You Need Me, by (the UU minister) Kate Braestrup and The Diving Bell and The Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Both are memoirs of extreme loss and change. Braestrup loses her husband, a Maine state trooper who was about to study to be a Unitarian Universalist minister when he died in a car crash. Instead she decides to follow his dream herself and becomes chaplain to the Maine Game Wardens, often involved in dicey rescues, searches for lost children, suicides, accident victims, and always surrounded by the natural beauty of the Maine backwoods and the goodness of the people she works with and for. Bauby has a stroke in his mid-40’s and goes from being the editor-in-chief of France’s Elle magazine to one of the rare people with ‘locked in syndrome’; he is completely paralyzed, only able to move his head slightly, only able to communicate by blinking his left eye. By doing just that, he wrote this account of what his life is like, how it changes everything, and what he gains, and loses, from this change. Bauby died two days after the French publication of his book – it has since been made into a film.
Both books are unwavering in their stark, entirely different, explorations of living, dying, love, abandonment, hope, despair and the enormous impact all those around us have on us. Though their topics are big and their stories painful, they are not depressing. Bauby’s is very French: existential, introspective, poetic and lonely, and Braestrup’s is very American, very Maine and very UU: honest, straightforward, intelligent and funny. Both stories take your breath away with the pain they compass, the details they convey that go straight to your heart and you recognize them, even across differences of life and experience: the tumbled sheets still warm from the body heat of a person who has died, the fly on your nose that you can do nothing about, the loved ones you cannot be comfortable with anymore, the strangers you can, and learning how to live in a whole new way you would never choose.
I recommend them both – even as a strange matched set. They are neither of them easy to get through, but they read beautifully, and surprise you and compel you – they did me. They are full of wisdom, truth and humanity and important perspectives that come from very different lives than our own. Ultimately, their greatest trait is shared: they are both powerful reminders of what matters.
See you in church.
04-01-08 Uniter
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I am writing this in the midst of attending the annual meeting of the Joseph Priestley District, our regional group of UU congregations within the larger Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Several Silver Spring members are attending workshops, services, meetings and social gatherings with other UU members from southern New Jersey to northern Virginia and all points in between. I am finding new ideas to try at UUCSS, and new perspectives on the continuing issues that concern us. I’m also pleased to tell others of the ideas and programs that we have that may be of use to them.
Our outreach in the denomination goes beyond our district. As you may have heard, Rev. Liz attended the Large Church conference in Louisville recently. Geoff Gavett, our VP for Finance, also attended this conference and participated in many workshops that will help us understand our current situation and plan our path forward. I’m sure that his conversations with the finance people from our association’s headquarters in Boston will be useful to the board and all of us.
Our next opportunity to connect with the denomination comes in June with the General Assembly of our association in Fort Lauderdale. Some of our leaders will take advantage of this time with thousands of UUs from all over the country, but it is not just a meeting for leaders. I attended my first GA when I had only a very small role in leadership, and as a member I found the camaraderie and intellectual and spiritual stimulation of the workshops, worship services and plenary sessions to be truly inspiring. I would urge anybody who is interested in the bigger picture of Unitarian Universalism to talk to me or anybody else who has attended, and check out the UUA website (http://uua.org) for more information. Some people have called me a GA junkie, but I’m glad to share this experience with many others. Join me in representing our wonderful church in sunny Florida!
04-01-08 Uniter
In her book The Gift of Faith, The Rev. Jeanne Nieuwejaar writes, “Whether we wish it so or not, our children are religious, spiritual beings. From within their own magical selves they know feelings, intuitions, and impulses. From the people, stories, songs, and media of their environs they hear religious words and messages and see religious symbols and images. From the experiences of their daily living they encounter religious events. They see dry sticks sprout pulsing green leaves. They see the deer killed on the highway. They watch their teacher’s tummy round with new life, and bid farewell to their uncle dying of AIDS. From the demands of their living and growing in the world they face situations that require from them a religious decision, response, or interpretation. We cannot choose whether they will be religious, but we can choose how and to what extent we will support, guide, and celebrate this dimension of their nature.”
The religious education program you have developed and continue to develop at UUCSS is a gift that we as adults give to ourselves and to our children in order to nurture and deepen our innate spirituality. All of us, regardless of age, come together in community to explore our deeper emotions, rejoice in the magic of the cosmos, delight in the comfort we receive from each other, and laugh and cry at the mysteries of life.
Together we will honor the programming you have in place and will look with enthusiasm as we explore the many ways to continue to provide rich and fulfilling worshipful experiences in the future. I hope that you will find a way to join in this most rewarding part of congregational life. You can teach, you can be on the RE Committee, you can help organize a supply closet, you can smile at a child on both cloudy and sunny days. You can drive a group of middle school youth to a social action commitment. Are there definite guarantees that our children will enjoy everything we do here at UUCSS? I don’t know the answer, but as Jeanne says, “We cannot choose whether they will be religious, but we can choose how and to what extent we will support, guide, and celebrate this dimension of their nature.”
Come join me on this journey.
10-02-07 Uniter