Dear Allen Ave UU members and friends, 

 

I am back to work from my summer time away and re-entering the life of our community. It was wonderful to be off, and it is also wonderful to be back. I am looking forward to the year ahead of us (our 4th year of this shared ministry!) and am as prepared as I can be for the challenges, twists, turns, heartbreaks, and great joys that are to come. I am sure that life will throw all this at us, and more. 

It is “going back” season for many of us, not just ministers. We return to normal work schedules, childcare schedules, to school and different routines. The energy of late summer is one of transition. I am holding in care all of you who find yourselves in the midst of transition this week. I am also holding in my hearts all those who carry anxiety and fear about returning to school, in particular. We are living through the reverberations of another school shooting (Minneapolis, MN). The horror of this country’s relationship to guns continues. 

 

Poet Nikita Gill writes – 

 

You are what you protect. 

You are what you hope for.

You are what you fight for.

And there should be nothing

in this entire universe

that convinces you

that only some children

deserve a safe childhood

and only some children

deserve to become adults.

All children deserve hope,

protection and safety. 

 

As we make our way through this time of change and open ourselves to the possibilities that await, may we remember that there is no such thing as other people’s children. That we all, every last one of us, belong to one another. And that however we move through this time, we are not alone. 

 

Yours,

Rev. Tara 

(image from Illustrated Ministries)