Read this week’s issue of the Liberal here: The Weekly Liberal Feb. 25. If you are currently not receiving our newsletter and would like to, sign up here.

Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Feb. 18. If you are currently not receiving our emails and and would like to, sign up here.

The Nominating Committee is now recruiting candidates for leadership positions on the Board of Trustees, the Foundation Board, and the Nominating Committee for the 2021-2022 church year. It’s an exciting and important time to serve as we move forward in our building project, navigate Rev. Justin’s departure, and live into new ways of being present to each other as the pandemic continues. Serving on one of these bodies enables you to represent other church members to ensure that the church moves forward in alignment with its visionary goals. Members have unique opportunities to collaborate with our ministers and other lay leaders to advance the church’s mission! Below are brief descriptions of the different positions:

Member of the Board of Trustees: Trustees partner with the congregation and professional staff in shaping the vision and long-term goals of the church. They articulate these aspirations through policy and collaborate with the Senior Co-ministers to see they are fulfilled. A fuller description of the position can be found here. 

Member of First Universalist Foundation Board: Board members serve as stewards of the Foundation endowment. The solicit grant applications, review applications, and select grantees to be awarded funding. A fuller description of the position can be found here.

Member of Nominating Committee: Committee members screen and recommend candidates to the congregation for vacant positions on the Board of Trustees, the Foundation Board, and the Nominating Committee. A fuller description of the position can be found here.

Requirements: You must be a member in good standing of the church. Elections occur at the Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 6. Please consider either nominating yourself or encouraging a fellow church member to apply for this important work. 

Fill out the application form here. Applications are due by Friday, March 19, 2021. 

If you have questions or would like more information, please email nomination [at] firstuniv.org or contact any Nominating Committee member: Jim Ramnaraine (chair), Sharon Ramirez, Pat Gottschalk, Valerie Garber, Cathy Manning, and Ray Dillon. Thanks for your attention to this opportunity to serve this congregation!  

Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Feb. 11. If you are currently not receiving our emails and and would like to, sign up here.

Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Feb. 4. If you are not currently receiving our emails and would like to, sign up here.

The poet Emily Dickinson writes: 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Over 150 years later, Michael Eric Dyson, in his book, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, writes something similar: “To be blunt, you (white people) are emotionally immature about race…We are forced to be gentle with you, which is another way of saying we are forced to lie to you. We must let you down easy, you, the powerful partner in our fraught relationship…You get upset when we tell you that whiteness has often been damaging and toxic. You get angry when we tell you how badly whiteness has behaved throughout history.” Dyson’s writing makes one wonder: How long can the truth be told slant? What is the collective moral cost of half truths and indirect truths being told?

When witnesses are sworn into a court of law, they promise “To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” As a country, we claim to value the truth, and yet we can scarcely face and acknowledge our history, riddled with myths and outright lies, and the ways that that history is still alive today. 

What does it take to hear the truth? To tell the truth? What shifts and gets unlocked in our bodies, our families, our churches, our communities, the body of our country, when we start taking the risk of telling and hearing the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, challenging, and dangerous?   

Archbishop Rowan Williams writes, “Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable.” These words suggest that truth by itself is not enough. Truth and love must dance together, striving to open the tight, defensive, scared places within the human heart. 

This month, we will explore the spiritual work of hearing and telling the truth in love. 

This month, please join us for these Sunday services:

• Sunday, Feb. 7, with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Sunday, Feb. 14 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Sunday, Feb. 21 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Sunday, Feb. 28 with Rev. Arif Mamdani

And these Wednesday services:

• Wednesday, Feb. 3 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Wednesday, Feb. 10 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Wednesday, Feb. 17 with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Wednesday, Feb. 24 with Rev. Karen Hutt

Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Jan 28. If you are not currently receiving our emails and would like to, sign up here.

Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Jan 21. If you are not currently receiving our emails and would like to, sign up here.

Read this week’s issue of our email newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Jan. 14.

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Read this week’s issue of our newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Jan. 7