Mary's Musings

Well, I'm excited! The summer services have been rich and satisfying with solid attendance and well as solid substance.After a summer of not being in the pulpit, there's a lot I want to say, so I'm eager to be back.I'm ready to be seeing more of all of you, young, old, and in between, and to swap stories of how the summer has been. 

I'm excited about the energy of UUCM's leadership and the directions you are taking.We enter a process of visioning this fall, with the retreat on September 6^th, followed by a series of services in September, October, and November devoted to developing and refining our vision of who we are as a congregation.With any luck at all, this vision will affirm the initiatives your leadership is ready to take in deepening the meaning of our being together and create opportunities for richer involvement by many others.

Of course, the process overlaps with earlier visions. We find ourselves moving toward becoming a welcoming congregation, becoming more responsible in our use of endowment funds, implementing a planned giving program, strengthening religious education for all ages, to name a few, because there is nothing stagnant about where we are now.

Summer is a time of ripening, and with fall, the harvest begins.
With this visioning process, I see us as harvesting the fruits of a season of reflecting on the meaning of this community, contemplating the possibilities, and letting ideas begin to come.I look forward to a time of harvest, a time for reaping fruits that will sustain us through the winter and beyond; a harvest that will include saving new seeds of directions to go and projects to plan that can be planted for seasons to come.

I hope everyone will join in the visioning process.Don't worry if your attachment to the congregation is brief, or faltering, or whatever, just join in -- speak, listen, and be part of the process.This is about who we are and who we are becoming in a very basic way.September 6^th in Concord.Be there!

See you in church! 

Mary