Today we enter the September theme of “belonging.” Belonging has been a resonant if unofficial theme for the past nine or ten months, and the Board has wisely identified “connection and reconnection” as a primary goal for this current congregation year.
I know that some of you are feeling disconnected and distant, wondering whether and how this community continues to be important to you. We’ve all been taken off our automatic pilot settings and so we are being asked this about most things in our lives. At the same time, I’m experiencing and witnessing among you some of the richest connections I’ve known since arriving six years ago. There is a fledgling pandemic-nurtured honesty and a realness in interactions, not to mention appreciation, as people gather again in various configurations, leading to deeper sharing and to conversations graced with gentle vulnerability.
Although I’m wondering what programs UUCM might hold this year to strengthen connection (and will be glad for your ideas!), I’m also noticing that when someone makes an effort to seek connection and reconnection, the possibilities are usually very near. So, if you are one of those people feeling detached and out at the edges, I encourage you to move a notch or two inward, toward the life and the people of this community. If you are comfortable and able to connect in the flesh, face to face, come to a service, join the weekday walkers, attend the men’s or women’s groups gatherings or the book group, get the September 24 workshop and party on your calendar, or check out a team or committee. To dive right in, join a Soul Matters circle! Or, at a more intimate scale, call someone up and go for a walk together, or share an outdoor meal or a swim, or a movie or your latest inspirational find. Talk about what’s really going on with you.
Most UUCM opportunities are available both online and onsite, but to move from outside online viewer toward greater connection, it will require that you take an active part, say something, stick around to chat.
Lately I’ve found myself drawn to and especially appreciating chances to connect to others in unhurried, informal ways: dinners at people’s homes, work bees, leisurely unplanned conversations in a store or a parking lot, hikes and walk-and-talks, outdoor concerts featuring UUCM members and friends and with many UUCM-ers in the audience (Great concerts, Randy, Tom, Steve and Frank!).
There is so much powerful connecting that happens – visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious – when people get together. It happens in powerful ways more naturally when people are in the same physical space, but connecting can also be powerful online for many, when one approaches the experience with that intention or openness. I expect that most any effort you make will yield some rewards.
Perhaps the invitation of a friend of Marcia McFee will serve you well. When Marica and her friend sit down together to catch up, her friend invites, “Let us speak of the deepest things we know, right away.”
Or perhaps you will first need to engage in some “weather talk,” as I call it, more casual but gradually deepening conversation to slowly test the relationship waters and to build trust.
However you begin, your effort to connect will likely be a meaningful investment in both your well-being and the well-being of this community. I’m watching it happen for those who are consciously moving a notch or two toward the center of the life and the people of UUCM. May it be so for you as well.
With care,
Rev. Kevin