I am writing two days after power was restored to our house, following a three day black out caused by the ice storm.  When the power goes out you start to really notice the light and the dark.  Daylight means being able to do and see things—you can go outside to get wood, wash dishes, or read a book or the newspaper.  When night falls the small flames of candles and the little glow of a battery powered lantern are not really enough even to read by. 

            Friday seemed easy—it was my day off and when the power went out at 9 a.m. the house was warm.  We drove over to LL Bean and purchased a little storm radio.  That night we went out to dinner and saw an inspiring movie about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office.  We cuddled up under a thick comforter for a long winter’s night.  Saturday morning we fired up our wood stove—we are neophytes to its use, so we followed the manual and the temperature gauge that told us when to open or close the damper or how to adjust the air flow so the fire was hot enough but not too hot.  We were able to cook our meals on it, and began to pay attention to the food that was warming up in our refrigerator or thawing in the freezer.  We hauled our coolers out of the basement and filled them with ice from outside.

            Meanwhile, our phone still worked.  I was hearing about the escapades of our loyal building and grounds volunteers because the power at the church had also gone out.  They were trying to pump out the basement which had flooded, and keep things warm enough so the pipes didn’t freeze.  No heat and no power in the building helped us decide to cancel services for Sunday morning.  I must admit I felt relieved because it was a lot of work for Margy and I just to keep up with stuff at home.   

            But there was a simple joy in our time, too.  At night the moon was full and bright, and the shadows of tree limbs crisscrossed over the white ground.  During the day the ice sparkled from every blade of grass and the birds were flocking around our back slider door where Margy had scattered sunflower seeds for them to eat.  There was something very restorative about attending to the basics of food and warmth, and following the rhythms of light and dark.  I bring a much deeper appreciation of the turning from dark to light in the Solstice.

            This month, I was planning to tell you about my upcoming sabbatical time, which will be occurring next autumn from September to December.  A sabbatical is a time of renewal for ministers so that we might bring new energy and inspiration to our service in our congregation.  This coming June 20^th will be the tenth anniversary of my ordination.  I have been working fulltime for those ten years, first in Brewster, Massachusetts for six years, and now here at Allen Avenue since 2005.  The Unitarian Universalist Association recommends that ministers receive one month of sabbatical time for every year that they serve a congregation.  I did not have a chance to take a sabbatical at my last church, so when I first came to A2U2 we agreed that after four years here, I would take a four month sabbatical. 

            During the next several months, you’ll be hearing more details of how the church will function during my absence.  We have already begun discussing it in the Committee on Ministry.  But for now, I just wanted to share with you a little of its purpose.  A sabbatical time is not so different from that time during the power outage—it is an extended interruption of my usual schedule, a time to turn inward to the care and nurture of my own soul.  It is a time to tend to its food and warmth, follow its inner rhythm of light and dark, in order to deepen the well from which I draw to offer sustenance to the spiritual growth of this beloved community. 

            So, more on that later, but in the meantime, I wish all of you a joyful new year! 

            The winter holidays are almost upon us, in the midst of a season filled with profound fiscal anxiety.  The economic news seems to be all bad news: job losses, the failure of corporations, the decline of retirement savings, and questions about bailouts and bankruptcies.  I say to myself, however, that none of this should be a complete surprise to us.  We have been hearing about the concept of sustainability for quite a while, and many environmental activists have warned that our current economic system is not based on a sustainable model. 

            Our economy is based on continued fiscal growth: the expansion of markets, the expansion of productivity, the expansion of investments—more and more expansion—and it is based on promoting greed and consumption.  But the natural environment is cyclical and seeks to maintain a balance.  It is based on giving and receiving in an interconnected web of life.  We humans can’t keep using more and more energy extracted from declining fossil fuels; we can’t keep filling up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases; we can’t keep developing land by cutting down trees—and still expect to continue to have oxygen to breathe, water to drink, and fertile soil to grow our food.  On a limited and interconnected planet, we are coming to the edges of what expansion can do for us.

            It has often been pointed out that the Chinese character for crisis also means opportunity.  I think, realistically, that our only fiscal hope is to reframe our economy toward a sustainable future—to create drastic changes in how we do business.  Others have said, for example, that we could create millions of new jobs by retro-fitting houses for energy efficiency.  Hopefully, there are people with creative ingenuity who are even now imagining new possibilities for a future that works. We need to be open to the possibility that things will change in large and small ways.

            It is difficult to make wise choices in the midst of anxiety.  There is an enormous pressure to turn the winter holidays into an orgy of spending and consumption and debt.  But I believe we would be better served by a surplus of stillness and dreaming—the kind of dreaming that opens our minds and hearts to transformation.  

            Our wonderful A2U2 celebrations of the Winter Solstice remind us of the dying of the old year and the birth of all that is new.  They remind us of the ever-turning cycles of nature.  We need these celebrations right now.  We need to enter that deep darkness where new ideas are born, where possibility and hope rise up like the dancing flames of the burning log from last year’s Yule, or the candles floating in an ice chalice. 

            My wish for us and for our children is that we can make the link between our holiday celebrations and our hopes for a sustainable future.  May we discover the wisdom to thrive in these changing times, and never stop singing, dancing, and caring for each other. 

Peace & Joy!