Exciting Times Ahead

Dear A2U2,

The speed of church life is picking up and we have so much already happening and more to look forward to this spring! I want to highlight a few things coming up at A2U2, a few things going on within our larger UU movement, and look ahead to this Sunday.

 On February 19th, we’ll hold the first New Member Welcome Ceremony in the sanctuary since before the pandemic! And your Stewardship Team is busy preparing for our kick-off on March 5th! There will be an opportunity to connect with one another through cottage-meetings and by hearing testimonials on Sunday mornings about how our congregation has touched the lives of those among us. Also in March, the A2U2 Pagan group will host a celebration of Ostara, the spring equinox, around the bonfire. Diane Oberbeck and I will launch a 3-part New to UU class on Sundays after church for those who would like to become members of A2U2 and also for those who might want a refresher or time plugging in more deeply to the way Unitarian Universalism is evolving. In April, we’ll embark on a 4-part discussion of the UUA Common Read Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism, hosted by your Social Justice Committee. In May we have the Ferry Beach Retreat to look forward to, and I’m sure I’m forgetting more! All that to say, read your ENews, join us Sundays in person or online, and plug in where you can. There is something for everybody.

The backdrop for what we’re working on as a congregation, of course, is our larger UU movement. The UUA’s Article II Study Commission, a group appointed by the UUA Board to revise the section of our bylaws that is home to the 7 Principles and 6 Sources (which happens every 15 years), has published their report containing the new proposed language. This draft will be voted on at General Assembly this June and again next June. This is important. We are looking at a significant overhaul of Article II, replacing the 7 Principles and 6 Sources with a set of 6 Core Values with Love at the center. For many, our principles are core to their understanding of our faith. So this change is big.


To learn more, I encourage you to take a look at the report. And if you have thoughts, please consider being an A2U2 delegate to GA this year and voting on behalf of our congregation. I’ll be introducing this work in more depth in worship on March 19th and in the New to UU class. If you’d like to be better connected with what’s going on in Unitarian Universalism regionally, I encourage you to sign up for the New England Region Newsletter.

OK… now take a breath. That was a lot of information!

More immediately, I hope you’ll join us on Sunday morning for “Midwives of Love”. Susan Selbe, retired nurse midwife, and I will co-lead worship exploring the ways in which we as Unitarian Universalists are called to be midwives of love, presence, witness, and care in our communities and the wider world.

It is an exciting time to be a Unitarian Universalist, and an exciting time for our beloved A2U2 community. I am grateful to be your minister in just such a time as this.

With hope,

Rev. Tara