Our Office Administrator of seven years, Gary Emenitove, is leaving his position at Second Unitarian on March 3. While we will hate to see him go, we also will think with gratitude for the work that he has given to the church these many years, and know that his decision is the right thing for him and his family.

How will you relate to a new minister once he or she arrives next summer? Have you gotten what you need from the lessons of the past to start fresh? Can you face the future of 2U with faith rather than fear? If the answer is “no,” then talk with someone about the pains of the past, the fears you still hold. Don’t let this opportunity be shadowed by worry, anger, hopelessness, or guilt. We have five more months together to prepare you for what comes next. Don’t let that time go by without reflecting on what you need to be able to face forward, to give your best efforts toward the goals you’ve set out.

I have great faith in you. Not the kind of faith that is blind, but faith founded in my experience of you. Don’t let your work be a burden. Find your lightness of being that will guide you into the next years at 2U. If the work you are doing is tiring rather than uplifting, step out for a time and reassess what you are doing and why. Find others who can bring to you a new perspective. If it is not invigorating, it is the wrong thing for you and for the church. What is needed is for each of you to find what makes you come alive. Lend a hand to others who may be struggling. Help them find their energy and faith. Don’t ever give in to the imagination that you are alone.

I commend to you this poem by Rumi:

Zero Circle
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
To gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Rev. Frieda