Dear Members and Friends,
I so enjoyed leading worship this past Sunday and sharing fellowship with you following the service. If you missed the service and would like to watch/hear the sermon, please click HERE. Or, you can find more sermons on our website, .uuwestport.org, under the “SERMONS & POETRY” tab.
As your transitional minister, I see my role as holding the space where trust can be restored where it has eroded. I’m grateful for the board and lay leaders who have together recognized the need for conflict resolution, discerning and committing to processes of decision-making, and visioning your core values, what holds you together, and where you want to go into the future. Before you is the work of renewal. I’m honored to be accompanying you as you engage this work of “coming home.”
Coming home is a journey that I hear many of you want to traverse, whether it’s coming home within yourself such that you’re comfortable in your own skin, coming home amidst the faith community of UU Westport, or coming home in the wider world perhaps with a specific calling or vocation.
The poet David Whyte notes. “It’s amazing really. As a human being all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world, and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you are already on your way home.”
The work of coming home is not just identifying how you’re not home, it is also discerning to where you are being called. For me the journey of coming home is a journey of renewal, a journey we do time and again throughout our lives.
Many of you have expressed interest in meeting with me, and I will have five gatherings, three in the evening and two during weekdays. If you would like to become more acquainted with me, I encourage you to sign up for one of the following five times by going to Sign-Up Genius.
- Monday, September 25 at 7:30
- Tuesday, September 26 at 10:00 AM
- Tuesday, September 26 at 7:00 PM
- Thursday, September 28 at 10:00 AM
- Thursday, September 28 at 7:00 PM
I will limit these gatherings to 10 people. If these times fill up, as I hope they do, I will offer more opportunities to meet in coming weeks. It is my hope to meet with a significant segment of the congregation before the end of October!
If you would like to meet individually with me, I am available on Zoom. You can email me or wait until I send you a link directly to my calendar in my sharing next week.
Warmly,
Alan