“Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.”
You never know when a huge capybara will show up at the Meeting House. Or anyone else for that matter… whom you’ll meet or exactly how the morning will go. The capybara showed up because we were reflecting on “tactical frivolity” and what is underneath all the costumes, uniforms, disguises, roles, cultural habits, theologies and other things that we can accumulate over time. One hopes that underneath it all there are hearts of love and compassion.
If you missed it, I also made an argument that the usage of the labels “liberal” and “conservative” is mixed up and rather meaningless when it comes to faith these days, since in fact Unitarian Universalism might be seen as a “conservative faith” because we try to conserve Jesus’ message rather than covering it up with all sorts of theological and cultural layers. It seems, from the stories, that you never knew whom you’d meet or exactly how things would go back in the day when you showed up to hang out with Jesus. He wasn’t into policing who was worthy enough to be included and who was not. In fact, he bothered his contemporaries because he reached out across all sorts of cultural, religious, ethnic, political and gender categories.
Speaking of surprises at the Meeting House, last Sunday we learned by chance that a relative newcomer to the congregation had come to the service after taking a red eye flight from L.A. on Saturday night! A few weeks ago, I was surprised by a long term member who showed up to service just ten days after major open-heart surgery. Now that’s dedication and commitment to the spiritual practice of Sunday “meeting”! They BOTH win this month’s awards for Most Herculean Efforts Made to Be In Community At the Meeting House on Sunday Morning!
This Sunday, we’ll take note of our unusually long history as a congregation. 380 years is a very long time for a New England Euro-American institution to last. How do you think we’ve lasted that long? (Might it have something to do with dedicated members?) About140 of those years were spent under a king, 250 of those years without one. As I said on Sunday, we prefer life without.
Hope to see you in your party clothes at the birthday party!
Rev. Lee