Friends,

I am looking forward to leading worship with you this coming Sunday, and to the picnic after!  I have gotten the sense that this fellowship appreciates a good time, so I hope to see many of you there.

Before I offer my reflections for this blog, I want to update you on my husband, Peter’s ongoing health concerns. Many of you know that just after I accepted the invitation to be the Developmental minister here, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In the intervening months he has gone through various tests, a round of chemotherapy and a round of radiation. This week we met with the surgeon who will accompany us through this next phase. Surgery to redesign his esophagus and stomach (and remove any evidence of cancer and the lymph nodes) will take place on October 2. He’ll recover in the hospital for 7 to 10 days, during which time I’ll be in Seattle to support him.

As was the case before I arrived, Beau will be available and tending to whatever comes up during that time. In addition, I will be checking in with staff and the Board during that time, and responding to email. I welcome your good vibes, love, light, and whatever else you might want to send to us through the ether. Know that I have support from family, colleagues, and friends. His prognosis is very good, and we expect him to recover fully. If you have questions or concerns about this, please reach out to me via minister@quuf.org.

As has been noted many times, I’ve been meeting with members in small groups for since the beginning of August. There are a few remaining, and if you’ve not had a chance to attend one, there are still opportunities to sign up.

I looked at the number of meetings that I’ve had, and the ones coming and, making allowances for those meetings that wound up being 10 people rather than 8, it appears that I will have met with somewhere around 180 members or friends by the time I’m done. I’ve taken pages and pages of notes, made some fun connections – someone was part of the UU congregation through which my parents met around the same time that they met, for example – and been surprised by the number of people were raised UU. In most of the congregations I’ve served there have been only a few at most. Once these meetings are all over and I have a chance to read through the notes and organize my thoughts more fully I will write up my reflections for the Board and the congregation to read.

What has struck me most deeply is that from the very first meeting is the grief that people expressed.  Each grief is somewhat different, the sources are many and varied. Mostly the grief is expressed about the divisions people see in the congregation, some of it has tinges of nostalgia for a different time in the Fellowship’s life. There are edges of anger in some of the expressions. All of it seems weighty and much of it is overwhelming. The seeming intractability of the divisions only deepens the sadness and loss. As I have said before, I don’t have any magic fixes, but one of the first steps is simply to note that the grief is present and the hope and wish for some way through can help us discern together how that might happen.

This Sunday will be about expectations and where we might go. As I noted, I look forward to seeing many of you this Sunday, and beginning our communal reflections together in worship.