Dear Friends, If you are holding this letter in your hands you are in a dwindling minority, I’m sorry to say. For thirty five years I’ve been carefully composing personal messages as a way to make connections, deepening those that have been made, and keeping the solid connections that have been years in the making.

Dear Friends, Thirty five years ago, in my third year of ministry in Attleboro, I invented the Dear Friends letter. Well, I didn’t actually invent it – in truth I got the idea from my friend and mentor, Herb Adams.

Dear Friends, The Annual Meeting was well-attended – the budget was discussed and passed, and the Mission Statement was approved. I made the following statement:

Dear Friends, It was good to see you yesterday. Indeed, it was great!

Dear Friends, We celebrated Sueʼs birthday over lobster at her beach house in Maine, and I was reminded of the insightful truth in Isaiah 11:16, ʻ…and a child shall lead them.ʼ I was thinking of all the ways parenting for these 47 years has ʻled me.ʼ

Dear Friends, Eleven years ago Loryʼs 21 year-old cat, Millie, died. She had survived cancer requiring brain surgery – she led her proverbial nine lives!

Dear Friends, When we say, “Hi, how are you?” we’re usually just being sociable and not really inquiring about one’s health or emotional state. But sometimes we are, in fact, asking, as when someone is recovering from an illness, surgery or the loss of a loved one. Then we say, “How are you doing?”

Dear Friends, The traditional English round begins: “Sumer is icumen in.” Summer has arrived, in spite of the calendar’s delay. One of summer’s gifts is the baseball season.

Dear Friends, Every year we take the Coming of Age class on a pilgrimage. We call it ‘the Boston trip.’