Newsletters
The Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society Weekly News
May 28, 2014
From Your Minister
Greetings All,
Last year, the rhododendron in front of our house was a sorry sight. Spindly branches and yellow leaves, a couple scraggly blooms.
I half-heartedly attempted to help it out by sprinkling our used tea leaves on it (I vaguely remembered something about acidity being good for flowering plants). But by the fall, it was in such bad shape that I thought about asking our landlord to just take it out.
Then, in November, just before Arden was born, my parents came to visit for a week. My father, a masterful diagnostician of people and plants, took one look at the rhody and prescribed coffee grounds. (I was right about the acidity.) Every day that week, he dutifully sprinkled coffee grounds around the base of the plant. Then the baby was born; the weather turned colder; the snows came; and I forgot completely about the rhododendron.
Until now! This week it exploded with blooms and new growth--healthy and vibrant and just beautiful!
My family will most likely be moving at the end of the summer--just as we've gotten the hang of our tiny little shared plot of earth, just as the rhododendron has come to life. I hate to leave it. But I like to think that the next family to move into our apartment might just fall in love with this old house because of the beautiful flowering plant out front.
As we say goodbye this week, I am grateful for the opportunity to have been with you at SUUS this spring. I said in February that this would be fallow time for the congregation. It has been time to feed the soil, to wait. You have done so dutifully and skillfully.
The blooms are coming. I wish you health and vitality, confidence and strength.
I will always think of you fondly and with a full heart.
With Much Love and Many Blessings,
Rev. Megan
May 28, 2014
From Your Minister
Greetings All,
Last year, the rhododendron in front of our house was a sorry sight. Spindly branches and yellow leaves, a couple scraggly blooms.
I half-heartedly attempted to help it out by sprinkling our used tea leaves on it (I vaguely remembered something about acidity being good for flowering plants). But by the fall, it was in such bad shape that I thought about asking our landlord to just take it out.
Then, in November, just before Arden was born, my parents came to visit for a week. My father, a masterful diagnostician of people and plants, took one look at the rhody and prescribed coffee grounds. (I was right about the acidity.) Every day that week, he dutifully sprinkled coffee grounds around the base of the plant. Then the baby was born; the weather turned colder; the snows came; and I forgot completely about the rhododendron.
Until now! This week it exploded with blooms and new growth--healthy and vibrant and just beautiful!
My family will most likely be moving at the end of the summer--just as we've gotten the hang of our tiny little shared plot of earth, just as the rhododendron has come to life. I hate to leave it. But I like to think that the next family to move into our apartment might just fall in love with this old house because of the beautiful flowering plant out front.
As we say goodbye this week, I am grateful for the opportunity to have been with you at SUUS this spring. I said in February that this would be fallow time for the congregation. It has been time to feed the soil, to wait. You have done so dutifully and skillfully.
The blooms are coming. I wish you health and vitality, confidence and strength.
I will always think of you fondly and with a full heart.
With Much Love and Many Blessings,
Rev. Megan
The Universalist
September 21, 2012
Minister's Musings
Things move fast this time of year. I find myself wondering where September has gone. I marvel, as I do every year, at the changing leaves. Already? Yes. This Saturday marks the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Fall. Though the days grow shorter, for so many of us, Autumn is a time of new beginnings. This is the season our Jewish friends and family know as the High Holidays. The most holy time of year in the Jewish calendar began on September 16th with the celebration of the New Year, Rosh HaShanah, and ends on September 26th with Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement.
This is a time for reflection on the past year. Time to reflect on how one’s actions how affected others and when we fell short. It is a time to reach out, to ask for forgiveness, to forgive, and to begin again.
We try to do good on so many levels. We want to treat others well, to make the world a better place, to say the right thing, to do the right thing, to be our best. Making – or taking – time in our busy, fast-moving lives to acknowledge and reflect on the times when we have not been our best may feel scary at first, but it can also be incredibly liberating.
When we allow ourselves the freedom of falling short, the freedom of imperfection, the freedom to make and admit mistakes, it becomes easier to act in the world. We are more free to engage with others in relationship, to participate in a new social justice project, to join a class or try something we’ve always wanted to do but may have never before given ourselves permission to try. I hope you will do some or all of these things at The Universalist Church this year!
What are you reflecting on this fall? How are you moving forward into this New Year?
Blessings,
Megan
September 21, 2012
Minister's Musings
Things move fast this time of year. I find myself wondering where September has gone. I marvel, as I do every year, at the changing leaves. Already? Yes. This Saturday marks the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Fall. Though the days grow shorter, for so many of us, Autumn is a time of new beginnings. This is the season our Jewish friends and family know as the High Holidays. The most holy time of year in the Jewish calendar began on September 16th with the celebration of the New Year, Rosh HaShanah, and ends on September 26th with Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement.
This is a time for reflection on the past year. Time to reflect on how one’s actions how affected others and when we fell short. It is a time to reach out, to ask for forgiveness, to forgive, and to begin again.
We try to do good on so many levels. We want to treat others well, to make the world a better place, to say the right thing, to do the right thing, to be our best. Making – or taking – time in our busy, fast-moving lives to acknowledge and reflect on the times when we have not been our best may feel scary at first, but it can also be incredibly liberating.
When we allow ourselves the freedom of falling short, the freedom of imperfection, the freedom to make and admit mistakes, it becomes easier to act in the world. We are more free to engage with others in relationship, to participate in a new social justice project, to join a class or try something we’ve always wanted to do but may have never before given ourselves permission to try. I hope you will do some or all of these things at The Universalist Church this year!
What are you reflecting on this fall? How are you moving forward into this New Year?
Blessings,
Megan