“If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return… keeping the gift in motion.”
On Sunday night about 20 of us attended the Merrimack Valley Project’s (MVP’s) annual M.I.C.A.H. awards for social action and social justice ministries in the wider community. It was lovely to see North Parish’s Jackie Orent-Nathan honored for her organizing work and also to see her photo- talking in a circle with other MVP participants- on the front cover of the MVP booklet. (You can read Jackie’s nomination in the Enews).
But that’s not all. It was also great to just be in a big room crowded with a wide variety of people representing congregations and labor organizations, all invested in social justice for the people of the Merrimack River Valley. It was great to meet Unitarian Universalists from the Chelmsford, Haverhill and Newburyport congregations and to read about the M.I.C.A.H. honorees from Chelmsford and Haverhill- both of them so impressive and working with additional local coalitions. The UUs were in the house! When the MVP Treasurer asked us to triple what we were thinking of giving that night, I did what he said. Now is the time.
Since we’re living in times when “business as usual” seems rather inappropriate, it is good to see the fruit of long-term organizational connections whether with MVP, UU Mass Action, the People’s Food Pantry, Bread and Roses, the Lawrence Interfaith Group or others. I am grateful we have collectively been able to quickly ramp up our support of food ministries this month because so much is already in place to do so. At North Parish- and at so many other congregations- we don’t only talk about the interdependent web of life, we help spin its strands and re-weave its fraying connections.
As Albert Einstein once wrote: “A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of others, living and dead… and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
Gratefully yours in a time of both hunger and humanity,
Rev. Lee