Dear Members and Friends,
At this evening’s Board meeting, your Board will discuss whether to launch the search process for your next “settled” minister. I believe that your Congregation is now poised to conduct a successful search for your next permanent minister. As your Transitional Senior Minister, I am pleased that your Congregation has truly come together during our shared ministry, and now you are on track to grow in ever more healthy and meaningful ways.
The open question under discussion is how to best meet the Congregation’s ministry needs next year. As much as I would like to be able to continue serving you, I simply cannot sustain a full-time hybrid ministry beyond the summer. With the current national political climate, there are heightened pastoral needs. Now that Rev. Ed is retired, there is no longer a minister frequently in the building. The need for memorial services has increased significantly this past year—and this need will likely continue or even rise.
A hybrid ministry is not an ideal arrangement for you, and it is not ideal for me either. The travel and the growing demands have taken a toll on my health and my family. Because I believe that you will be best served by a full-time minister who lives in your community, I have informed the Board that I will serve out my current contract and depart August 15.
I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to serve you. It has been an extraordinary year and a half thus far. I’m highly confident that you will find a skilled full-time minister to walk with you—and live in your community. I will support your Board in finding a good candidate to be with you next year. I will be a voice for you in the Board’s search process. In the meantime, I look forward to continue leading worship and providing a pastoral presence.
I imagine there will be a range of emotions regarding this announcement. Fortunately we still have several months together. I am proud of the good work we have done together, and there will be many opportunities for moments of connection, both one-on-one and in groups. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you would like to schedule a conversation either in-person or on ZOOM.
Over the next week, I encourage you to consider participating in some of the following:
- Poetry for the Spirit: Let Your Life Speak, February 19, 11:00 AM on ZOOM:, the first of six weekly listening circles on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM. (See readings below)
- USAID and International Rescue Fund Funding Crisis Response with Jeanette Bailey and Rev. Jim Francek on February 19 at 7:00 PM on ZOOM.
- Celebration of Life for Carol Hamilton, February 22, 10:30 AM, at Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in Fairfield.
- Spiritual Ground for Navigating Challenging Times, February 22, 2:00 PM in the Meeting House. The Pastoral Care Chaplains and I will co-facilitate this gathering to address our spiritual and emotional needs during these trying times. Come for consolation, for sharing, and for empowerment.
- Choral Chameleon Concert, “Control,” February 22, 7:30 PM, $30/adults, $10/children
- Worship Service: “A Song of Peace,” February 23, 10:00 AM, our worship service will explore interfaith collaborations and the heart of our value of pluralism—affirming that multiple faith perspectives can co-exist respectfully and peacefully.
- Listening Circle with Rev. Alan Taylor, February 23, 11:30 AM in the Minister’s Office.
- Music Program Hopes and Dreams, February 23, 11:30 AM in the East Wing. The Search Team for our Permanent Music Director wants to hear if you have any specific hopes or dreams for our music program as the job description for our permanent Music Director is finalized. As shared in the past, if the Interim Music Director applies, a decision will be made up or down before any other names would be considered. This process will hopefully be finished by mid-March.
There’s plenty for us to attend to together this very week—and it is a joy for me to continue to serve you these next several months.
Warmly,
Rev. Alan Taylor
Below are readings for your reflection. If you would like to participate in a listening circle where these are read, you are welcome to join me tomorrow at 11am on ZOOM for the first gathering of Poetry for the Spirit. Click HERE.
Refusing Silence” by Tess Gallagher, from Claiming the Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women’s Poetry, edited by Marilyn Sewell
Heartbeat trembling
your kingdom
of leaves
near the ceremony
of water, I never insisted on you. I admit
I delayed. I was the Empress
of Delay. But it can’t be
put off now. On the sacred branch
of my only voice—I insist.
Insist for us all,
which is the job
of the voice, and especially of the poet.
Else what am I for, what use
am I if I don’t
insist?
There are messages to send.
Gathers and songs.
Because we need
to insist. Else what are we f
or? What use
are we?
from Consolations: : The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte
Anger is the deepest form of compassion,
for another, for the world, for the self, for a life,
for the body, for a family and for all our ideals,
all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt.
Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction,
anger is the purest form of care,
the internal living flame of anger
always illuminates what we belong to,
what we wish to protect
and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for.
from The Hidden Wholeness by Parker Palmer
“There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door out to the barn. They all knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.”
Today we live in a blizzard of another sort. It swirls around us and within us as economic injustice, fear, greed, and indifference to the suffering of others. We all know stories of people who have lost their moral bearings, who have been separated from their own souls.
The lost ones come from every walk of life: clergy and corporate executives, politicians and people on the street, celebrities and schoolchildren. Some of us fear that we, or those we love, will become lost in the storm. Some of us are lost at this moment and are trying to find our way home. Some are lost without knowing it. Some of us have just reached for the rope. Others are in the middle of the journey trying to keep hold of our grip. Others have just arrived home.
But my own experience of the blizzard, which includes getting lost in it more often than I like to admit, tells me that the order of the soul can never be destroyed. It may be obscured by the whiteout, but we are still in the soul’s backyard, with chance after chance to regain our bearings. When we catch sight of [our own] soul, we can survive the blizzard without losing our hope or our way.
