Greetings from Michigan! As my photo journal reveals, I’ve had a delightful and restful summer in Ludington, Michigan, and now I am looking forward to returning to Chattanooga in a couple of weeks to begin our fourth year of developmental ministry together! I have missed you!
At the end of June, I attended the annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in New Orleans which was inspiring, tiring, hot, and very wet. On the front end of GA, UU ministers gather for Ministry Days. We share worship, workshops, and lectures. My favorite has always been the Berry Street Lecture. After two full and rich days of education, fellowship, and spiritual nourishment, the exhilarating opening ceremony on Wednesday evening is almost too much, but four thousand UU’s under one roof is impossible to resist.
General Assembly this year was dedicated to “awakening and deepening UU’s commitment to working in solidarity with people on the margins”. There were a variety of workshops and lectures on white supremacy, white fragility and the true meaning of racial justice. The Ware Lecturer was Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Stevenson is the author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, the 2015–2016 UU Common Read. Unfortunately, his lecture was not recorded, but most of the workshops, worship services, and lectures are available on the UUA website. It had been a difficult year for UU’s and I had been dreading GA this year, but I feel enriched and encouraged by the time spent with fellow UU’s as we elected a new president, Susan Frederick Gray, and wrestled with our limitations and our potential to achieve our dreams.
A group of seminary buddies and I took a guided historical tour of New Orleans on our last day together. Our guide, a local who had grown up on St. Charles Street, reveled in sharing the rich history of the city. We had beignets and café au lait at Café du Monde and visited graveyards New Orleans style; you can’t bury anyone in the ground so they have above ground tombs that can hold generations of family members! Here’s the scoop: when a previously deceased family member has been dead for at least a year and one day, they can be moved from the coffin to a burial bag and placed in the lower quarters or at the side or back of the vault. Cemeteries have temporary holding vaults just in case. The rule is that it takes a year and one day for a body to decompose so they can be condensed into a smaller space. Who knew?
I met via ZOOM meetings with your new UUCC board on July 18th and left the meeting with optimism and expectation for a successful year. I’m driving home on August 14th and will see you in church on Sunday, August 20th!
See you in church!
Cathy