Dear Friends - Letters From Frank

• July 14, 2008
  We spent last week at Chautauqua where I offered the Sunday sermon, Spirituality for the Skeptic, at the Unitarian Fellowship. On Monday morning we had an open discussion in response to the sermon, which stimulated me to wish I could do a re-write.
• June 16, 2008
  Last Saturday morning I was sitting on the patio with my second cup of coffee reading the Book Review section of the Times when Ed called and told me about Nick Parisot’s tragic death. Ed was at the church and got the call from Nick’s family. We met at the church twenty minutes later to go together to Nick’s parent’s home.
• June 2, 2008
  Two weeks ago I was in Braunfels, Texas, to do a memorial service with Watts Wacker, in honor of his father. The service was held in the brand-spanking new Unitarian Universalist church. It was the first memorial service held there. Their very first Sunday service in the new building they helped construct was held just the day before.
• May 19. 2008
  It was a sunny day, a little after seven o’clock in the morning.  Mild, but rather cool for May.  It was a good day for walking.  There was no one else at Compo Beach as I approached the boardwalk, so I couldn’t help notice the two men ahead of me as they walked out from the pavilion onto the sand toward the water, single file.
• May 5, 2008
  Boston Public garden was ablaze with magnificent tulips arranged in patches of flaming red, outrageous yellow, and pretty pink. Last Friday at noon twenty-three members of this year’s Coming of Age Class, along with five chaperones, had a picnic lunch with those flowers.
• April 21, 2008
  Lory and I bought our house thirteen years ago. It's a colonial, built in 1929 - solid construction, to be sure. It's in a very convenient location, just off the Post Road. We can, and do, walk across to Sherwood Diner, Walgreens, the cleaners, Starbucks, my optometrist, and several other places we frequent. We're a mile from Staples High, where Carlyn is a junior.
• April 7, 2008
  We can take a lesson from Canada geese. They fly in a V formation. They figured out the aeordynamic benefits: each goose, flapping its wings, creates an upward lift for the goose that follows close behind.
• March 24, 2008
  Spring, like Sandburg’s fog, ‘comes in on little cat feet.’ It brings longer, warmer days. This year Easter sneaked in suddenly, less than 48 hours after the vernal equinox – it hasn’t been that early since 1913, and won’t be as early again until the year 2228.
• March 10, 2008
  One of the benefits of working with a large staff is the opportunity to occupy a place in the pew to listen to Margie and Debra’s sermons.  You, too, benefit from hearing a variety of voices from the pulpit, of course.       
• February 25, 2008
  Tom Brokaw’s latest book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, is more than a trip down memory lane for me.  It’s a penetrating, powerful exploration of the connections between what happened then and what’s happening now; the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, for example.
• February 11, 2008
  Last week I went to see two of my favorite actors, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, in the dramatic comedy The Bucket List.  It’s a simple, straight-forward story of an unlikely pair of terminally-ill guys who meet in the hospital. Freeman’s character, Carter, tells Nicholson’s character, Edward, about his philosophy professor’s suggestion that they make a list of all the things they want to do before they ‘kick the bucket.’  A bucket list.
• January 28, 2008 - special handwritten letter
• January 14, 2008
  The world is changing, and the pace of change has quickened.  In the brief course of my own lifetime there have been lots of changes, and many of those changes have been positive.
• December 31, 2007
  I have a new hat.  It was a Christmas present.  I’ve been wearing my new hat on my winter-morning walk at Compo Beach.  It’s a nice, warm hat, and to look at it you would think it was just another knitted hat. 
• December 17, 2007
  Winter means many things, including cancellations due to snow and ice.  Robert Burns wrote, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men / Gang aft a-gley.” Yes, our plans in winter, and all the other seasons, often go astray.  ‘The branch that doesn’t bend will break.’
• December 3, 2007
  In the Christian calendar this is the Advent season, with the first of the four candles lighted for hope.  Chanukah candles are now placed in the menorah , one each night for eight nights, representing the miracle of a day’s worth of oil lasting eight days; stamina!
• November 19, 2007
  Charles Reed has been in failing health for some time, so it was not surprising to get the call from his nephew, Joseph, that he died last Friday.  Not surprising, but still shocking.
• November 5, 2007
  The Coming of Age ceremony is a public recognition of our children’s transition into adulthood.  Of course it doesn’t happen all at once – neither they, nor their parents could handle the shock!
• October 22, 2007
  The October leaves are here -- bright shades of orange, red, yellow.  We’ve enjoyed the warmth of an extended Indian summer.  In November brown leaves will be harvested, blown from their tentative hold on the branches and scattering in the wind.  Thus the season’s popular name.
• October 8, 2007
  The caption reads: “Is God keeping you from going to church?”
• September 21, 2007
  Our visit to Italy this summer found us standing in the Coliseum listening to our guide tell us about the construction of Rome’s first permanent amphitheater, built to seat 50,000 spectators and covering 6 acres.  He said, “It has eighty entrances so huge crowds could arrive and leave easily.”
• September 10, 2007
  I have an increasing love and appreciation for our homecoming service.  Only one out of my 24 was rained on.  A week or so before each one I look carefully at the long-range forecast.
• August 15, 2007
  Several summer-reading books have captured my imagination. One, especially, is written by a former Episcopal priest and bishop, Richard Holloway, which he calls Looking in the Distance. His title comes from the poet Vasilii Rozanov:
• July 19, 2007
  I know it’s a bit unusual to officiate at your former wife’s wedding, but you have to understand that the end of our 33-year marriage was not the end of a relationship. We’ve shared love of two terrific grandchildren, watching them move through their growing-up years—Alex and Hannah will soon be 20 and 17.  We share love of our wonderful children who are nudging their way into middle age.  (Jonathan turned 40 last week; Susan turns 44 next month.)
• June 18, 2007
  I want to tell you about my summer plans, both to share this part of the journey and to let you know where I’ll be, and who will be ‘on call’ during those times when I’m away.
• June 4, 2007
  “Religion is the birth-to-death process of re-connecting with other people, with an ever-changing, aging, failing, growing self, and with Nature.”
• May 21, 2007
  In 1840, at the dedication of a new church in Lexington, Massachusetts, designed by his friend Charles Follen, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Know then that your church is not builded (sic) when the last stone, the last rafter and clapboard is laid, not when we have assembled, not when we had adhered to the customary rite, but then first is it a church when the consciousness of his union with the Supreme Soul dawns on the lowly heart of the worshiper.”  (My emphasis.)
• May 7, 2007
  “You can’t step in the same river twice,” the saying goes.  I’ve taken groups on the Boston trip about 24 times in the past 23 years:  22 times with the Coming of Age class, and two adult group trips.  No two are exactly the same.
• April 23, 2007
  As kids we used to go hunting for snakes in the woods by turning over rotten logs; there were always a lot of bugs under them, and sometimes a snake or two.  When garter snakes slithered out we’d grab them by the tail and put them in a pail.
• April 9. 2007
  Bill Bell, aka Charles W. Bell, New York Daily News Religion Editor and human-interest columnist, has retired.  In his closing column on Easter Sunday, he announced his retirement in a much more colorful way: “I’m putting the cap on my pen.”
• March 26, 2007
  “The cancer is back.  It has metastasized.” 
• March 12, 2007
  The theme for this year’s every-member canvass is Be Bold.
• February 26, 2007
  Thanks for your response to my comments about our Sunday service candle lighting.  The feedback was helpful.  I was moved by your sensitivity.  It’s a way of living our affirmation: ‘To seek the truth in love,’
• February 12, 2007
  The sermon and service last Sunday was about The Wizard of Oz, and I came up with a two-word summary of the story: purposeful companionship. Dorothy and the friends she met on her journey along the Yellow Brick Road, the scarecrow, tin man and lion, were ‘off to see the Wizard’ hoping to find what they needed: brains, a heart, courage, and a way back to Kansas – home.  I thought, later, that I should have called it the Wizard of Us.
• January 29, 2007
  In the film History Boys, one of the students is asked to define history. He says, “It’s just one bloody thing after another.”
• January 15, 2007
  No doubt you’ve noticed that our new Associate Minister, Margie Allen, has become a powerful, effective, warm presence.
• Januray 1, 2007
  We mark our lives by clocks and calendars; now the date tells us we’re another year older. 
• December 18, 2006
  The Westport Country Playhouse staged a production of A Christmas Carol, promising that it would be an annual event.  This year, one of the children in our church school, Luke Sauer, 6, played Tiny Tim.  He had more stage time than Tiny Tim usually has, and he was great. 
• December 4, 2006
  A couple of weeks ago Jan Braunle gave me an article from the Boston Globe about a group of architects that had recently gathered at Harvard. One of them was Victor Lundy, the architect of our buildings.
• November 20, 2006
  Now we enter the challenging, changing, confusing holiday season.
• November 6, 2006
  Margie’s installation was one of those high points for our congregation. She and her committee and team of helpers put together a moving service, a great reception and the dance that moved her from metaphor to dancing floor.  Whew!
• October 23, 2006
  At a clergy meeting in Bridgeport last week we were asked to pair up with someone we didn’t know and introduce ourselves, telling one another how we got into ministry and what keeps us in it—what feeds the spirit, if you will.
• October 9, 2006
  I hope you’ll be able to help install Margie on October 29 at 4 p.m.
• September 25, 2006
  Part of our annual recognition of the High Holy Days includes the Kol Kidre music on cello and organ.  Last year at this time Carlyn told me she’d like to learn it and play it at our Sunday service this year.  It’s a moving, challenging piece -- having Carlyn play it last Sunday made it even more meaningful for me.
• September 11, 2006
  Did you notice the above date?  As I write, I recall the day. No doubt you remember where you were on that fateful morning five years ago.  We were shocked.  Stunned.
• August 25, 2006
  I was out of town during the Democratic primary, so I got an absentee ballot. I wanted to vote against the war in Iraq. I wanted to cast a vote against the havoc that Bush and Company have wreaked. I need to hang on to a slim thread of hope that we can stop the moral dominoes from falling and bringing this great nation to its collapse.
• July 11, 2006
  I went to St. Louis for General Assembly.  The ministers meet for a couple of days before the lay delegates arrive—it was good to catch up with lots of old friends, though there’s inevitable news of illnesses and deaths.  
• June 19, 2006
  “To everything there is a season…” We’re easing into summer, the Sabbath season.
  
• June 5, 2006
  His name is Alexander Hall Hildreth, otherwise known as ‘the graduate.’ I resisted taking him aside at the party we had in his honor and whispering, “Plastics,” in his ear! I simply hugged him close and whispered, “Nice going,” and he smiled that sweet, spontaneous Alex smile.
• May 22, 2006
  Jonathan and Rosie are getting married. They’ve been together for about sixteen years. When Jon and I had lunch a few weeks ago, and he told me about their decision, I looked across the table and said, “So, what’s the hurry?”
• May 9, 2006
  Margie Allen is our new Associate Minister.  I couldn’t be more pleased or enthused.
• April 24, 2006
  We celebrated Earth Day by focusing on trees.
• April 11, 2006
  Gail Pesyna, our spirited canvass chair, reported very good news on Sunday: our members and friends are stepping up to the financial challenge. Pledges are coming in with significant increases.
• March 27, 2006
  When my daughter Susan told me she was going to have a hysterectomy - the tumor had grown and needed to be removed, along with her uterus - she was suddenly six, again, not the 42 year old woman with grown children she had become.
• March 13, 2006
  One Sunday, several years ago, one of the children knocked on my office door just before the start of the second service and said, with great excitement, “Superman is here!”  He had seen Christopher Reeve negotiating the handicap ramp after wheeling himself out of his van.
• February 24, 2006
  It was good to have David Vita, our Social Justice Director, stand in the pulpit last Sunday and tell us about himself – about the journey that brought him to us – and about his work.
• February 13, 2006
  Bill Rice, one of my mentors in ministry, said, “Never cancel worship.”  During his 25-year ministry in Wellesley Hills he said he cancelled only once, and someone showed up and demanded to know why he wasn’t there, since he lived in a parsonage just across the street.
• January 30, 2006
  There’s something intriguing and important about the controversy surrounding James Frey’s book, A Million Little Pieces.  I’m not sure why that is, exactly, but I’m sure that it is important.  Well, it’s important to me.  By trying to tell you why it’s important to me, maybe  I’ll gain a better understanding of it.  That’s one function of writing or preaching.
• January 17, 2006
  Several mild January days set us up to be hit on the chin by the reality of winter, again. Driving through the icy, wet snow last Sunday morning I wondered if anyone else would be there.
• January 2, 2006
  I got a wonderful, affirming message on the answering machine from our congregation’s first called minister, Arnold Westwood. He said, “I just got two issues of Soundings and I read them from cover to cover, and I can’t tell you how proud I feel about what’s happening there. It warms my heart…” His affirmation was an end-of-the year gift.
• December 20, 2005
  The telephone call from Alex last Saturday was like the Flexible Flyer I found beside the tree with my name on it when I was seven – a wonderful gift.
• December 5, 2005
  ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…” You know the story.
• November 21, 2005
  I was waiting at the light on the Post Road today when I saw my first truckload of Christmas trees; a reminder of the season.  Here it comes, ready or not.
• November 7, 2005
  We try to have the two Sunday services the same, but there are a few times during the year when they are different.  This coming Sunday is one of those times:  the Coming of Age service will be at eleven; I’ll be preaching at nine.
• October 24, 2005
  A brief history of my world would include the decision to leave teaching in order to prepare for Unitarian ministry.  That happened in the winter of ’69.  I started at B.U. school of theology in September, filled with enthusiasm, and lots of questions and nervous concerns. 
• October 10, 2005
  “What must I do to tame you?” asked the Little Prince.
• September 26, 2005
  Katrina, and her younger sister, Rita, came crashing onto center stage, terrorizing those living in the hurricanes’ paths and upsetting the rest of us.  Lives were taken.  Life, for millions, was turned upside down, even as they count their blessings:  “At least we survived,” they said. 
• September 12, 2005
  Last Tuesday Randi Tarczali was walking her dog, had a heart attack and died.  She was only 46 and she left two children, Jen (15) and Max (11) as well as her husband, Peter.
• August 29, 2005
  Let me show you some snap shots of my summer, beginning with the wonderful week Lory and I spent at Chris and Harvey Place's condo in Mammoth Lake, California.
• July 14, 2005
  Since I donated my time to the Unitarian Fellowship at Chautauqua I feel like I was a minister-on-loan for a week. I was an emissary from Westport, preaching at their Sunday service and offering a series of five lectures, from Monday to Friday.
• June 21, 2005
  I’ve walked a two-mile loop along Compo beach almost every day this year—the routine has become a discipline.  It serves me well, not only for the exercise, but the contemplation time.
• June 6, 2005
  Last summer I gave a lecture in the Hall of Philosophy at the Chautauqua Institute as part of a series on ethics.  The talk, which I called, Humor as a Moral Imperative, suggested that a well-developed sense of humor is a serious ethical responsibility. 
• May 24, 2005
  Bob Perry, our Youth Advisor for the past eleven years, has made a tremendous contribution to the high school youth group.  During those years a lot has happened in his life—he and Candice were married, he completed graduate education to prepare to teach, he got a job at Eagle Hill School where he’s been teaching for a few years—and he’s eleven years older!
• May 9, 2005
  At our staff meeting last week we mapped out the year—we call it calendarizing.
• April 25, 2005
  Benedict XVI is our new Pope.
• April 11, 2005
  A friend responded to last Sunday’s sermon by sending some sentences penned by Thomas Merton, catholic monk and poet.  Speaking of his epiphany, Merton wrote:
• March 28, 2005
  In the dedication of his play, Man and Superman, G. B. Shaw wrote:
  
  “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap…  The only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base.”
• March 14, 2005
  “Sometimes I imagine my life is a series of trapeze swings.  I’m either holding on to a trapeze bar swinging along, or for a few moments I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.  Most of the time I’m hanging on for dear life to my illusive trapeze bar of the moment.”
• March 1, 2005
  We had a great annual meeting: well-attended, high-spirited and efficient.  Jim Perry was presented the ‘Very Fine Award’ for his years of dedicated, outstanding service to this congregation.  Jim comes from a family of clergy—I told him that he was the kind of man who becomes a minister by the way he lives his life.  The award is well deserved.
• February 14, 2005
  During the cold spell, a week ago last Saturday, I was sitting alone in the kitchen reading the book review section of the New York Times.  Lory had taken Carlyn to orchestra rehearsal.  The house was quiet.  I was enjoying late-morning coffee and time alone.
• February 1, 2005
  On the last Sunday in February we’ll have our annual meeting; later that day many of us will tune in to the 77 Annual Academy Award show when this year’s Oscar winners will be announced, one by one, sprinkled with entertainment:  “The envelope please.”
• January 17, 2005
  By now you know about Barbara’s decision to resign her position as Associate Minister. She will be with us through the end of March, then she’ll step into April to begin the next chapter.
• January 3, 2005
  I want to tell you about our congregation’s efforts to help with tsunami relief aid. First, though I want to tell you about Karl Purnell’s personal experience—it will put a closer human perspective on the unfolding story.
• December 21, 2004
  Tears and laughter often go together.  Certain kinds of smiles go with frowns that are caused by bits of irony.  The aggressive discussion about saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas brought that ironic smile to my Santa-face.  It brought a frown with it.
• December 7, 2004
  We’ve had several requests for copies of last Sunday’s sermon, “ The Anatomy of a Religious Liberal.” Some folks are surprised to learn that there’s a cassette tape recording available, and even more surprised to find out that there’s a manuscript which we post on our website.
• November 22, 2004
  Our Partner Church minister, Mihaly, and his wife, Erzsike (Elizabeth) had a wonderful visit with us last month. After returning home he wrote:  “I just finished all my agricultural work for the fall and now I can spend a little time reflecting back to the beautiful days we spent in the U.S.
• November 8, 2004
  There’s a story in yesterday’s papers about a young man from Georgia who drove to New York following the election and took his own life, despondent over the re-election of George Bush.
• October 25, 2004
  Robert Kennedy was campaigning for the Presidency when he stepped off the plane to make a speech and was told that Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated. He didn’t need someone to tell him what to say. He remembered the words of his favorite poem by the ancient Greek dramatist, Aeschylus:
• October 12, 2004
  I had planned to write about the wonderful visit we've had with our partner church minister, Biro Mihaly and his charming wife, Elizabeth.
• September 27, 2004
  Last winter Christopher Reeve told me about an exciting film project on which he was working. It’s the inspiring story of Brooke Ellison who was struck by a car on her way home from school, on the first day of seventh grade.
• September 13, 2004
  On the Sunday following the tragedy of September 11, I read Pablo Neruda’s poem ‘Keeping Quiet,’ which was sent to me by one of our members.  I’ve used it at several 9/11 memorial services since:
• September 1, 2004
  The summer Olympics provided inspiring entertainment. There were some surprises, some poignant moments, so pmeroblems with judges, and a marathon runner pushed off stride by a spectator gone mad.
• August 1, 2004
  We just got back from our week at Chautauqua; it went well, in spite of the rain.
• June 21, 2004
  "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work which he had done."
• June 7, 2004
  In 1987 Ronald Reagan stood at the infamous Berlin wall and said, "Mr.Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" That, of course, is precisely what Gorbachev had set out to do. As president of the Soviet Union he introduced perestroika and glasnost: openness and candor.
• May 24, 2004
  Photography, is in the news. Not just those photos. I recall Jeanne Kimball, a long-time member, showing me a photograph her grandfather took of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.
• May 10, 2004
  Sometimes everything seems to click-to go just right. That's the way this year's Coming of Age trip to Boston, Lexington and Concord felt. Everything clicked. I want to tell you about it.
• April 26, 2004
  We were looking forward to a visit from our Partner Church friends, but plans have changed. The minister, Mihaly, (pronounced me'-high) his wife, Elizabeth, and a young couple from their congregation, Gizeke (pronounced giz'-ee-kay) and Istvan were scheduled to come to Westport in early May.
• April 13, 2004
  On Sunday, April 25, hundreds of thousands of freedom riders will journey to Washington, D.C. to march for freedom of choice.
• March 29, 2004
  Twenty years ago today I was in the midst of an intense process of meeting with members of this congregation who would vote yes or no on the Ministerial Search Committee's recommendation to call me to serve as senior minister.
• March 15, 2004
  What a wonderful gift Mel Gibson has given to us. Talk about unintended consequences!
• March 1, 2004
  Today I did something very unusual for a Monday afternoon-I went to the movies. Even more unusual-unique, actually--I went with a dozen clergy colleagues from our Westport-Weston clergy group. We went, of course, to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
• February 16, 2004
  A few months ago we had an auction to raise money for A Better Chance. The ABC program has been up and running for a couple of years. We bought a house in Westport for the scholars and house parents, not far from Staples High School, where they are studying.
• February 2, 2004
  The sermon, 'In Praise of Christianity,' was postponed because of the January 18 Sunday morning snowstorm. We've re-scheduled it for February 29-Annual Meeting Sunday.
• January 19, 2004
  Old Man Winter has gotten into some bad habits. He's been taking time off during the week and making weekend calls on a regular basis, disappointing kids who would like a day off from school, and upsetting clergy who have labored long to prepare the perfect sermon.
• January 5, 2004
  I'm often surprised when I discover some new meanings in old things, especially when I'm standing in the lectern or pulpit, reading something with which I'm very familiar, but hearing the words in a new way.
• December 22, 2003
  The holiday season has three distinct characteristics, like the isosceles triangle shape of the Christmas tree. The star at the top is the ideal part of the season-wonderful symbolic stories and poetic images that sink deep down to touch the place 'where the spirit meets the bone.'
• December 8, 2003  
  The weather gods got confused. It's understandable. Don't put the blame on them. They've been listening to Bing Crosby croon about a white Christmas since mid-November. The Friday following Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year. "Oh, you better watch out."
• November 3, 2003
  Just as our service in honor of Tom Funk was about to close Bill Rother whispered in my ear: "Jose Feliciano is here and he wants to sing." We were delighted. Jose and Tom had played together at nursing homes at Christmas and other times over the years.
• October 6, 2003
  It was a beautiful day. Dry. Cool, but not cold. Twenty-six of us boarded the bus in Westport to set out for our great adventure-our pilgrimage to Boston.
• September 22, 2003
  The Coleman memorial bench sits solidly in our memorial garden-a granite pew in Nature's sanctuary. It's a space made sacred by the lasting love of precious memories.
• July 24, 2003  
  There was some question about calling the choir trip to Transylvania, Hungary and Prague a religious pilgrimage. Why not simply call it a singing tour of Eastern Europe?
• June 10, 2003
  My friend Henry David Thoreau said, "I wish to begin this summer well, to do something in it worthy of it and of me, to transcend my daily routine; to have my immortality now in the quality of my daily life!"
• April 28, 2003  
  We've been thinking about freedom.  So this year's Coming of Age trip to Boston where we walk part of the Freedom Trail, took on new and deeper meaning.  Not that it takes a war with thousands of deaths to focus on freedom.
• April 14, 2003
  The Easter basket is the focus of my earliest memories of the spring holiday. We had to find the basket, which the Easter Bunny would hide in the obvious places.  Inside the basket was a bed of colored cellophane grass on which sat the chocolate eggs and bunnies, yellow marshmallow chicks, and the many-colored jellybeans. The baskets outlived the fairy tale by several years.
• March 31, 2003  
  An anecdote written by a journalist in New York City who was visited by a colleague for a week is instructive.  Each day they go through the same routine; they take the subway to the office, stop at the newsstand to buy morning papers, then they go to the office.
• March 3, 2003
  I loved watching my children with Mr. Rogers. He was the epitome of a non-anxious presence. He wasn't a televangelist, but he had a television ministry. He encouraged children to think, to pay attention, to use their imagination--he was a wonderful storyteller. He encouraged children to ask questions. His list of goals included the development of a child's sense of safety, self-worth and self-control. He was working to promote racial and cultural diversity long before multiculturalism became a household word.
• December 17, 2002
  More than anything else, Christmas is about memories, many of which carry us back to the child who's still living inside each of us--informing and influencing us more than we're likely to realize.
• November 19, 2002
  Thanksgiving isn't just a day in the calendar year. Thanksgiving day is meant to be a reminder of something that's an essential part of us, something we need to nurture.
• September 23, 2002
  This is a challenging time. It's okay. I don't mind being challenged. It just makes a big difference to have a sense of supportnot necessarily agreement. That's what gets us through. Thomas Paine said it in his famous essay, Common Sense: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands now, deserves the thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered...and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated."
• September 11, 2002
  When I wrote this column one year ago today we were in shock. Hours after the attack on America I changed the letter which I had composed the day before. "Everything has changed," we said. And, in some ways, it has.
• August 26, 2002
  Lucille Clifton, one of the poets who spoke and recited at Chautauqua last month, and the only person of color to speak that week, told us about an experience the day JFK was assassinated. Her children saw that she was crying and asked why she was so sad. "The President has been shot and killed," she explained. The oldest child said,"Don't cry Momma, we didn't do it."
• July 26, 2002
  A couple of days before we were scheduled to leave for Chautauqua the Ninth District Court in California ruled that the insertion of the words under God in our pledge of allegiance was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of religion and state.
• June 17, 2002 
  I want to cover three things in this easing-into-summer missive: the ministers' on-call schedule; a Habitat For Humanity proposal; and an invitation to participate in my next recorded book project, In Times of Trouble.
• May 20, 2002 
  I have been bathed in bundles of sympathy in response to my dear nephew's tragic death. I hope that this expression of sincere appreciation is adequate response.
• May 6, 2002
  Early on Saturday morning I got a call from my brother John. We talk on the phone from time to time, usually for special occasions. He and I share the same birthday- he was my big present on my eighth birthday. Each of us tries to be the first to call on that day. But an early Saturday morning call could mean only one thing- bad news.
• April 23, 2002  
  On the first night of Passover I shared a Seder with Lory's extended family, all of whom are Jewish. I was, in a sense, the outsider. They didn't treat me like an outsider, but I was the only person sitting around the Seder table who is not Jewish.
• April 9, 2002  
  Westport children are deprived. Most of them have just about everything money can buy, of course-an over-abundance. But there are things money can't buy.
• March 25, 2002  
  Frost's poem Birches touches some delicate places. After painting the white birch trees, 'bending left and right across the lines of straighter darker trees,' he swings down to earth in this delightful dnouement: "I'd like to get away from earth awhile / And then come back to it and begin over." My sabbatical helped me get away from earth awhile. I've had a respite from week-to-week responsibilities and the need to comment on events that deserve serious attention and reflection.
• March 11, 2002 
  When you turn a certain age in our society you are considered a senior citizen. Since we are a youth-worshiping culture, the appellation senior citizen is euphemistic.
• February 25, 2002  
  Sarah Hughes came from behind to take the gold. Now she stands in that special circle of Olympians who remind us of something we too easily forget in the daily avalanche of violence that assults the spirit.
• February 11, 2002  
  I expected the book I have in my head to pour onto the pages. It's there, certainly, waiting to be tapped onto the keys from my mind, through flying fingers, onto the blank screen. Then all I need to do is hit the print button, and voila!
• January 28, 2002  
  It was good to be back in the saddle on Sunday. I'll put the sermon on the website- I wish I could put the feeling in our sanctuary on the website, but there are some things that simply have to be experienced first hand.
• January 14, 2002
  My first sabbatical project was a paper for the Greenfield Group on The Uses of Poetry in Parish Ministry. It's done. I'll present it to the group on April 30. You'll hear portions of it.
• December 17, 2001 
  I got a Hallmark Christmas card from my old college buddy Paul, wishing me the usual happy holiday, and hoping the true meaning of Christmas would be mine. The funny bone gets tickled in little unexpected ways. I laughed out loud and Lory asked what was so funny. I tried to explain why it was amusing. I failed.
• December 4, 2001
  We call the collection Natural Selections. They're my favorite poems. They survived years of reading, searching, hoping, and culling. They fit. Survival of the fittest.
• November 20, 2001 
  Last spring I worked out a plan with the Board of Trustees to have a three-month sabbatical this winter. It's been ten years since my first sabbatical, so the timing was right.
• November 5, 2001
  On October 23 I served as moderator at an Interfaith Council presentation on Islam. The speaker was a lay Muslim leader. Our attendance was more than double what we get at most of our Interfaith forums. Everyone wants to learn about Islam, and to know what Muslims are thinking.
• October 22, 2001
  Keith and Scott Coleman worked together at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. When it was clear that they would not be found alive in the ravenous rubble, I talked with their brother Todd, at whose wedding I co-officiated last October.
• October 8, 2001
  The war against the terrorists who turned planes into bombs has moved from rhetoric to rockets. No doubt many among us will feel some sense of satisfaction, a catharsis. Some may even see the military action as a cause for rejoicing. It isn't.
• September 11, 2001
  By the time you read this we will have statistics about the terrible, infamous events that occurred a few hours ago in New York and Washington.
• August 17, 2001
  Summer is to the calendar year what Sunday is to the week. We pause. Reflect. Slow down and take a little more notice.
• June 12, 2001 
  "A penny for your thoughts," we used to say. As I sat in the sanctuary during the R.E. service I had lots of thoughts whirling through my head.
• May 28, 2001 
  We had dinner in the Northup Room with Arpad Szabo, bishop of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. Yes, Virginia, the Unitarians in Transylvania do have a bishop.
• May 14, 2001 
  I was out of town the week that the death of Weston's Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Janet Shaner, rocked and shocked the community. News of the sad event came to me in a voice-mail message from a member of our congregation. She began by saying, "Your closing words about showing kindness are so important."
• May 1, 2001 
  I'm often asked about our Sunday morning candle lighting. I've listened to colleagues and lay people wrestle with questions and issues around it. Ministers are sometimes reluctant to invite people to come forward, afraid they may take too much time, or may make political speeches.
• April 16, 2001  
  Jack Riemer recently wrote in the Houston Chronicle: "On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.
• April 2, 2001
  Easter was celebrated with an Easter basket for each of us, hidden in an easy-to-find place, and filled with candy in the shape of eggs, bunnies and chickens. My favorites were those little yellow marshmallow chicks which you had to eat soon after taking them from the wrapper or they would get hard.
• March 19, 2001
  Winter turns to spring. "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul..." Lory, Carlyn and I are looking forward to Spring Break. The day after Easter we'll take our annual trip to Florida to visit Lory's father and step-mother, and to frolic in the sun, sand and surf.
• March 5, 2001
  In 1983 I traveled to Central America to see for myself what was happening in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Our government was involved militarily in those countries, and I heard a sermon about the good things the Sandinistas were doing, and the terrible things our government was doing. I was disturbed. The trip was important. February 5, 2001  
  In 1983 I traveled to Central America to see for myself what was happening in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Our government was involved militarily in those countries, and I heard a sermon about the good things the Sandinistas were doing, and the terrible things our government was doing. I was disturbed. The trip was important.
• January 22, 2001  
  Last week fifteen of us sat in a circle downstairs in the new chapel. It was my first opportunity to put that new space to one of its uses-adult education.
• January 8, 2001
  Nick Paige was 18 when his life ended in a tragic automobile accident on December 22; 'the darkest evening of the year,' as Robert Frost put it in his most well-known poem.
• December 8, 2000
  Carlyn's question lingers, as any good question does: "Frank, is Christmas a religious holiday?<" she asked. It was one of those moments when I knew I had to give a straight answer. I couldn't turn it back to her and ask, "What do you think." She's nine. She wants an answer.
• November 27, 2000
  When I was in Transylvania the summer before last, visiting our partner church in Alsoboldogfalva, I took some photographs of the repairs that were desperately needed on their 200 year old church. Stucco was crumbling on the outside walls and steeple, the metal steeple roof needed work, and so forth.
• November 13, 2000 
  Carlyn was sitting next to me reading her American Girl magazine. The story was about a Chinese girl who had been adopted by an American family.
• October 2, 2000 
  Back in the mid-70's I worked to elect Jack Mendelsohn to the office of president of our association. Jack had a significant influence on my journey into Unitarianism and then into the ministry.
• September 2, 2000 
  Sixty sounded so sinister to me; an ominous birthday. I wanted to dodge that bullet. When Lory asked how I wanted to celebrate my 60th I said, "I want to hide. I want to be alone. I want to avoid any mention of it. I don't want to acknowledge that it's actually happening." Tongue was only partially in cheek.
• August 17, 2000 
  Chautauqua is a 425-mile drive from Westport, if it's not raining. It rained, making the drive considerably longer. You know what I mean. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, August 5, and moved into the minister's housing building, fortunate to have gotten a room with a bath.
• July 25, 2000 
  I can see him standing there, talking to us as we listen appreciatively. He brought life to what might otherwise look like a pile of old stones. His name is Yehuda, and he was our personal guide for the two weeks we spent as a family in Israel.
• June 1, 2000 
  Each year we conclude our Coming of Age trip with a hike on Walden Pond to Thoreau's cairn. This year the group was big enough to make a hand-holding circle around the huge pile of rocks put there by thousands of pilgrims in Thoreau's memory.
• May 15, 2000 
  Remodeling begins with destruction. The old must be torn down, or ripped apart, to get ready for the new. The West Wing has been destroyed. Those funky bathrooms are no more. Gone for good. Literally. Gone to make room for good bathrooms, a new kitchen, offices and meeting space.
• May 1, 2000 
  Vickie Sue Robinson Good is gone. She left us last Thursday. I was with her just a few days before, on Easter Sunday. I knew that she would be leaving soon, but I was shocked to get the call on Thursday morning. "Too soon!"
• April 18, 2000 
  Last Friday night I stood in front of the fireplace in the Northup Room and delivered some favorite pieces of poetry at Barbara Holder's Lifespan gathering of poets. She invited me to be the first reader of the evening, then I listened with appreciation as others read from their work, putting personal pieces of life into poems. I was moved.
• April 3, 2000 
  When I was in conversation with the Search Committee sixteen years ago I naturally spoke with each of the former ministers -- to check references, the way they did with me.
• March 21, 2000 
  Victoria Busnan, who recently started attending services, sent a little story by Julie Manham, which she called An Afternoon in the Park. "There once was a little boy who wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of root bear and he started his journey....<
• February 22, 2000 
  I watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" thinking I'd see yet another indication of the decay of values in America. Not so; I was drawn in, answering multiple choice questions -- the kind I liked when I took tests in school. You have at least a 25% chance of answering correctly whether you know it or not. And you can usually eliminate one or two answers.
• January 24, 2000  
  This has been a season of suffering. The flu hit with a vengeance. The story of Job comes to mind. In the midst of suffering Job says, "My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth."
• January 10, 2000
  Thank you for your generous and thoughtful contribution to the Ministers' Discretionary Fund. Thank you for the holiday cards and notes. Thank you for the gifts for the CATCH program in memory of Ed Bryce, and the memorial gifts in honor of Greg Fried.
• December 20, 1999 
  As I prepare for our Christmas Eve services, I'm reminded of some of the things I love about this season. I prepared some thoughts which I shared at last Sunday's special music service. I said, and I repeat: If Christmas didn't exist... well, we'd have to invent it.
• December 6, 1999
  Greg Fried died on Sunday morning. We'll celebrate his life next Saturday at 3 p.m. Greg was a quiet, unassuming man. He was very generous, contributing to the needs of the church in many ways over the years. He and Edith paid for the sign in the front of the church, in memory of their dear, dear friend, Jane Bickford. Every time I drive into the church I think of the Fried's gift, as well as Jane.
• November 22, 1999 
  Jonathan was sixteen years old when we moved to Westport in 1984. He was glad to leave the high school he'd been attending, but not at all sure about the new one.
• November 9, 1999 
  Carlyn and I were walking into Stop & Shop to get something for dinner. She said, thinking about food, "I'm never going to eat hummus again!"
• October 25, 1999 
  Our canvass team has chosen the theme:  Share the Commitment. I want to support their work by encouraging you to do exactly that-to share the financial commitment implicit in your involvement here, whether you are a member, friend or have a child in the church school.
• October 11, 1999 
  Fiddler on the Roof opens with these words from Tevye:  "A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up here if it's so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word tradition!"
• July 26, 1999
  Jonathan and I opened the cabin in Maine. We had to make repairs, especially the damage done by kids on Halloween. They threw a three-foot long, 6" by 6" beam through the nine-pane window in the back door. A nice neighbor boarded it up for us.
• April 4, 1999
  Rob Zuckerman assumed the chairmanship of our Board of Trustees at our annual meeting in February. A lot has happened under his watch! On Sunday Rob took the lectern to make the announcements, so that he could talk about our Search Committee's work, their recent report, and the Board's decision in response to it.
• March 15, 1999 
  Children can be so wonderful, even in their challenging and demanding ways. Very early on they learn to say no with a surprisingly self-assertive tone. They pepper conversation with question marks, often after the word why.

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