It’s a pleasure to be writing to the UUCSR community for the first time as your Associate Minister for Member and Community Engagement. As our partnership is still in its beginning stages, I want to recognize that understanding the complexities of a place and a people can take some time to understand. With October’s upcoming theme being Heritage, I have been thinking a lot about how the past of a community flows through its present people and is both shaped and shapes what the community is becoming.
We don’t become something from nothing, of course, but rather we become using the building blocks of matter and energy that are already present.
So, as we get to know one another, I will be asking you lots of questions.
Who are you?
What’s your essence, your substance?
What substrates do we have to work with?
What will catalyze reactions and change?
What kind of energy do we have to put into the equation?
What products are we hoping for?
What variables can we control?
And perhaps most importantly, how much are we willing to experiment and are we willing to have our hypotheses and our assumptions continually troubled and challenged?
These are exciting questions for me, and I hope that you’re looking forward to it as much as I am!