Smiling and Satisfied

Okay, I promise that this is not a smarmy post-sex post. But I am sitting here smiling and deeply satisfied about weekend activities that left me totally exhausted.

On Saturday, I had an all-day-and-into-the-night work "day." A training session for volunteers who make our Sunday morning possible (greeters, ushers, worship associates, office and kitchen volunteers and sound technicians) brought 37 people out. That's over a third of our active members. What a joy! We shared thoughts about what we have been able to accomplish with one another; we found places where we weren't sufficiently communicating with one another; we tried to imagine being more consistenly a welcoming place for newcomers. I think we shared some positive ideas and hope that we are finding a way to work together better.

Then I worked on preparation for the Sunday service. We had our Ingathering to mark the start of the program year. I arranged the Sanctuary chairs into as big a circle as the room could hold, and tried to make it so that no one would attempt to sit in a second row. (Failed at that one, by the way.) Got a large plastic washtub, perched on top of a box, in the center of the room, ready to take water brought by attendees from the many places our families have visitied this summer. Then went to Bordine's Nursery in Grand Blanc township to find some plants on-sale to surround the tub. I was expecting mums, of course, and got them. But also found a nice looking flowering plum (bushy, not in flower, but with pretty purple leaves) and a green and yellow Jacob's Ladder. Brought those back to the church in time to greet the leaders of our Youth Group who were setting up for an overnight lock-in of teenagers. Then met with Pia Broden-Williams, our Music Director, to cement the music for Sunday's service. Then made corrections to the Sunday bulletin . . .

You can imagine that I was pretty wiped by midnight, when I got to bed.

At 5:30, I decided to sleep in a little (choosing not to write) and re-set the clock for 7:00 a.m., when I'd see the glow of sunrise, and be thoughtful for a few minutes before showering and dressing and getting to church to have breakfast with the teens and to cut a CD of special music for the Sunday service.

Our Ingathering was as rich as it ever is. I was touched to hear the simple stories some of us shared; to note the connections people made to each other; to laugh when one member sought the aid of another in pouring a half dozen containers of water from many places; to see the "more than water" sharing of a seashell, or a photograph; to encourage the children to note well what was poured into the common receptacle, and to marvel when little candles were floated on the surface of the water to symbolize our prayers.

Amy Derrick, our Director of Lifespan Learning, carried the theological weight of the morning in reading the story, "Water Dance," and then talking about how water is such a potent symbol for many religious traditions. While her story was directed to our children, it was the message for us all, and I delighted to see this very-pregnant and very-vibrant young woman showing intellectual leadership of the community.

Pia Broden-Williams, our Music Director, sang "Come Down, Angels" and led us in our opening song "Come, Come Whoever You Are," during which I led the spiral dance, and the closing "Bashanah haba'a," which we sing as "Soon the Day Will Arrive." Pia was raised in an African Hebraic home, and marks the Jewish Days of Awe, and added a soaring descant in the last chorus, when she and I switched over to Hebrew for a few lines, and sped the tempo up just a bit. (Thank you Jennifer Howard at the piano!)

A group of our children took the water tub out to our Memorial Garden and poured a libation at its portal and then poured the remaining water on many of the trees and plants in thememorial garden. We started with the double white birch which is planted by the ashes of John Straw's parents (his grandsome Chris and Leonard helped) and then it was up to the children's inspired play that the rest of the water was poured. And then, of course, the tub was abandoned, as was I . . .

Our monthly "pot luck" luncheon was full of tomatoes, and good spirits; plenty of interaction among people about activities in the church and in our lives. I shared coffee and a little fruit, and stopped for a moment to discover that a 5:30 meeting I was expecting to attend had been moved to another time. I checked things in the Sanctuary, made sure my study was locked up, and left to go home to fall asleep on the day bed upstairs.

I did stop to check in on Lucy Mercier and her boys (Linda Campbell, who had been up all night with the teenagers had gone to bed), and was pleased to be offered a little oven roasted chicken and some potato salad as the boys ate McDonald's. Jennifer Howard stopped by, too, and Lucy and I made arrangements for our weekly Minister and Moderator meeting . . . and then, finally, I went home.

I woke up at 5 or so, considered, for a minute or two, getting up and cutting the grass. But I let that pass, and allowed myself as much sleep as my body would take. Watched a DVD in the early evening (Arlington Road, what an amazing pre-9/11 anti-terrorism movie), and then finally hit the sack at 11.

And rose this morning smiling and satisfied. Watered the transplants and the new plants waiting to be put into the garden. Moved some variegated ivy out of the window boxes and porch urns and into a space at the edge of a maple tree where not much seems to grow. Watered my herbs, again, and the very late gladioli. Tossed old watermelon rind into the cuttings and leaf pile (not managed anough to be a real compost pile!). Then came to work to start the day a litttle early.

Overcast, cool, invigorating.

Good morning.

Spiritual Hospitality

Well, it had to happen one morning or another . . . and today was the day.

I didn't see the sun come up.

I was entirely "tuckered out" after meetings last night, had a very late bite to eat and then hit the sack. I got up at 8:45 this morning. Whoops.

Anyway, I did my morning writing, but it was aimed at a particular use: my monthly newsletter column. You'll forgive me, even as you trust that I did my breathing and said my prayers.

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Dear congregation, dear community,

Summer passed so quickly! Is it true that, so soon, we're at the start of a new program year?

I hope you are ready for our Ingathering on September 9. Director of Lifespan Learning Amy Derrick and Music Director Pia Broden-Williams and I are creating a worship service that will be intergenerational, musical and dramatic. We hope that every family will attend; that adults and children together will share brief stories of the summer, and that we will gather together around a vessel into which we will pour water that we have brought with us from our summer's rest and recreation.

We will also float on the water our candles of celebration and concern. We'll take a deep breath together, and meditate for a moment, and sing. Our children will pour the vessels of our water into the Memorial Garden, a recognition of those who have gone before. And we will offer a blessing to one another, even as we bless together our Pot Luck--and the church's new year!
What a new year we will share! We're opening the doors of our church to the community in a special gesture of welcome. Our services, beginning in mid-September and running though Hallowe'en, will aim to be directed to the community and to those who may be unfamiliar with us. With special music, including many special appearances by the talented members of our congregation, and with a spirit-centered musical prelude at the start of each service, we hope to set a tone of diverse spirituality and spiritual hospitality.

There is a challenge in diversity. Political scientist Robert Putnam observes that "in the presence of diversity . . . we act like turtles." In neighborhoods that become more diverse, some connections between people and especially commitments to key institutions may decline in the transformation process. People retreat to the familiar in the face of the foreign.

This is why I call what we are attempting a kind of "spiritual hospitality." Our universalist convictions tell us that there are universal principles that we share; our unitarianism tells us, in our very bones, that we are but one human family, sharing one holy cycle of living, dwelling on one little world.

In my conversations with some of our members this summer, we've shared our thought that the challenge of hospitality that makes it spiritual, makes it more than mundane, is that it presumes that the hosts give to the guests, but that in an open interaction, the host also receives what the guest gives by their presence. In so doing, we become co-creators with one another of a community neither of us yet knows.

Sometimes we call such openness "radical hospitality." This is not just being welcoming of political radicals! It is saying that at the roots of who we are, at the roots of our intentionality, we know that we are not our own for ourselves. We are, in our roots, members of one another, growing from the same turf, even if we do not yet know each other directly.

More information is available at the church, and we will share more about it at the Ingathering; but I hoe that you will want to be in church this fall, bringing friends and family, and being ready to welcome guests into our congregational center.
Let's welcome eachother back!

Fondly,
(Rev.) David Carl Olson
P.S. This article is also available at www.coffeecabinet.blogspot.com

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Well, I guess that about does it! Morning is dry, growing sunny. I'm smiling.

Good morning.