• Home
  • rainbow flagA Welcoming Congregation
  • Safe Congregation SealKeeping Safe
  • Capital Campaign
  • DONATE/REALM
  • TUCWomen
    • About TUCWomen
    • Join Us
    • Events
    • Contact
  • Contact
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport

10 Lyons Plains Rd., Westport, CT 06880 - Ph: (203)227-7205 Sunday Services: 10:00 AM

Unitarian Universalist Association
  • Calendar
    • Calendar
    • SOUNDINGS
    • Communications Guidelines
    • ZOOM Instructions
    • Tips For Making Videos
    • Event & Space Reservations
    • TUUCWSocial Email List Ground Rules
  • Welcome Visitors
    • UU Orientation
    • Directions & Services
    • Special Ceremonies & Dedications
    • Our Congregational History
    • Our Faith
    • What is a Unitarian Universalist?
    • We are Unitarian Universalists
    • How did you become a Unitarian Universalist?
    • History of the Flaming Chalice
    • UU History in 8 Minutes
  • About Us
    • Our Mission Statement
    • Our Vision Statement
    • About Our Ministers
    • Committee on Ministry
    • Our Staff
    • Getting Involved
    • Board of Trustees
    • Governance
    • Healing and Resilience Task Force
    • Congregant Celebration
    • Pastoral Care Chaplains
    • The Caring Support Network
    • Our Welcoming Congregation
    • Photo & Video Galleries
    • Links – Beyond Our Walls
    • SOUNDINGS
    • Communications Guidelines
    • Events & Space Reservations
    • Pledging
  • Faith Formation
    • Welcome to Faith Formation at TUUCW
    • Faith Formation for Children and Youth 2023-24
    • This Week in Family Faith Formation
    • Faith Formation Programs 2023-24
    • Faith Formation Registration
    • Adult Faith Formation
    • Soul Matters
    • Keeping Safe
  • Social Justice
    • Welcome to Social Justice
    • Advocates for Prevention of Gun Violence
    • Beardsley School Committee
    • Immigration and Refugee Committee
    • KIVA Microfinance Committee
    • Racial Justice Committee
    • Westbridge Coalition
  • Music Program
    • Our Minister of Music
    • The Music Committee
    • The Bell Choir
    • The Choir (Women and Men)
    • Special Projects Choir
    • Once & Again Singers
    • Children’s Choir
    • Teen Choir
    • Sight-singing Classes
    • Cabaret
    • Voice Classes
    • Love Is the Spirit
    • Tune My Heart To Sing
    • Support Our Music Program
  • Sermons & Poetry
    • Minister’s Messages
    • Sermons – Audio
    • Sermons – Video
    • Rev. Alan Taylor’s Sermons
    • Rev. John T. Morehouse’s sermons
    • From Your Senior Minister: Facing Grace
    • Facing Grace – Rev. John’s blog
    • Rev. Frank Hall, Minister Emeritus – sermons
    • Rev. Frank Hall, Minister Emeritus – Dear Friends
    • Intern Minister’s sermons
    • Guest Minister’s sermons
    • Poetry & Readings
    • Communications from Your Ministers
  • Live Stream

Dear Friends – October 17, 2008

April 24, 2011 by Rev. Frank Hall - Minister Emeritus

Dear Friends,

I met Dick Drinon at Ferry Beach in the summer of ’67.  The seed of our friendship was nourished in the depths – you know the depths I mean.  We shared our lives, beginning with our work with high school youth at the three-week summer programs at Ferry Beach.

Dick encouraged me to pursue ministry, which meant leaving teaching, going to seminary in 1969, and doing the list of things required for ministerial credentials. Dick delivered the sermon at my ordination on October 15, 1972.  I officiated at his wedding a few years later and celebrated the birth of his beautiful daughter, Sarah, thirty-one years ago.  I walked with him on the dark road of his divorce a couple of years after Sarah was born; he raised her alone.

Dick’s early ministry took him to Africa and the Middle East, working for the Unitarian Service Committee.  Then he taught in a college in Toronto, and eventually served several churches as parish minister:  Rockland, Ma; Carlisle, Ma; Woodstock, Vt; Wausau, Wi; Palmer, Ma; and finally Hopedale, Ma.  I delivered installation sermons for him at each of those churches. He also served as Executive Director of Ferry Beach, in Saco, Maine, where we first met.

Sarah telephoned me in tears a week ago last Saturday morning.  She said, “Papa had a major heart attack.  They don’t expect him to make it.”  He underwent emergency surgery at U Mass Medical Center in Worcester. That afternoon Lory and I drove to the hospital to be with Sarah, waiting, and hoping…

We drove back on Saturday night so I could do the Sunday services – the sermon was based on Stanley Kunitz’s poetry and prose.  A half hour before the first service Sarah told me that she had just said good-bye to her dear Papa.  He died Sunday morning, October 12, 2008, twelve years to the day he co-officiated at my wedding with Lory.  He was 76 and still working.

On Sunday morning, Kunitz’s poem The Layers, which I read as introduction to the sermon, took on new meaning:  “I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides…I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered!  How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?  In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face…”

I’ve been fortunate in this life for many reasons, not the least of which is several very deep and lasting friendships.  Dick and I were soul-mates.  He was an important part of my family; he officiated at my mother’s funeral; he dedicated my granddaughter, Hannah, here in Westport 18 years ago.  We laughed together and cried together.  We ate lobster together at my cabin in Maine, where he visited every summer.

Beneath all the ways we wove our lives – the weddings and divorces, the children and grand-children, the ordinations and installations, the illnesses and funerals – something else was going on, something deeper than friendship; soul-making stuff.  I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life and I’ll share it with you from time to time.  Now I’m preparing his memorial service which, by the time you read this, I will have done at his church in Hopedale on October 19.  He planned a sermon for October 12, “Time Is Too Precious To Waste.”  Next Sunday at 9 a.m.  I’ll tell you what I think he might have said and I’ll tell you more about a most amazing man.

Yours,

Frank

Filed Under: Dear Friends

SEARCH

Categories

  • Events
    • Announcements
  • Interdependent Web
  • Minister's Message
  • Order of Service
  • Re. Alan Taylor's Sermons
  • Readings
  • Sermons
    • From Your Senior Minister: Facing Grace
    • Guest Minister's sermons
    • In The Interim
    • Intern Minister's Sermons
    • Minister's Message
    • Rev. Frank Hall, Minister Emeritus
      • chautauqua
      • Dear Friends
      • Rev. Frank Hall's sermons
    • Rev. John T. Morehouse's sermons
    • Rev. Shelly Thompson, Assistant Minister for Faith Formation
  • This Week at Church
  • TUCWomen Blog
  • Uncategorized
    • Uncategorised
  • Upcoming Sermons
  • Minister’s Messages
  • Sermons – Audio
  • Sermons – Video
  • Rev. Alan Taylor’s Sermons
  • Rev. John T. Morehouse’s sermons
  • From Your Senior Minister: Facing Grace
  • Facing Grace – Rev. John’s blog
  • Rev. Frank Hall, Minister Emeritus – sermons
  • Rev. Frank Hall, Minister Emeritus – Dear Friends
  • Intern Minister’s sermons
  • Guest Minister’s sermons
  • Readings & Poetry
  • Communications from Your Ministers

     The Unitarian Universalist
     Congregation in Westport
     is a member congregation of the
     Unitarian Universalist Association

      CLICK HERE if you have any questions      about The Unitarian Universalist
    Congregation in Westport

Congregational Hours: Tuesday - Friday
9:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Summer Hours:
July & August until after Labor Day:
Tuesday - Friday 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM

CLICK HERE to contact the web master

CLICK HERE to opt in to receive
the Weekly Congregational Email Blast

Membership Directory June 2023

Copyright © 2023 · Visit us at The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport - 10 Lyons Plains Rd., Westport, CT 06880 - All rights reserved.