Odds and Ends—Thoughts on a Variety of Topics
One of the things that has been hard at Temple Adat Shalom is that we only have a half hour to set up for worship: bringing out our cart with candles and the chalice, moving the pulpit around, making sure we have our offering baskets, testing the sound, talking over any details with the worship leaders, etc. etc. So I am usually rushing around and have rarely been able to stand at the door to greet congregants as you enter the sanctuary. If you are someone I have rushed by instead of greeting properly, I hope you’ll accept my heartfelt apologies. There are many reasons for us to look forward to returning to our regular worship time and space, and for me, being able to stand at the door to greet you is the main one!
My May 12 sermon, “Protecting Chalice’s Children,” revisited the congregation’s history with a minister whose inappropriate behavior led to an agreement that he would not attend or be involved with the children’s religious education program. In that sermon, I shared my opinion that this history—and the congregation’s uncertainty in knowing if they were protecting the children well enough—was part of the congregation’s decision to purchase our current property on Miller Avenue, a property that effectively had no space for children.
Two of our Chalice congregants were dismayed by my characterization of the Miller property as having no space for children and wanted me (and all of us) to know that when the Miller Avenue property was purchased, the plan was to use the upstairs rooms (now offices) as classroom space. It was subsequently learned that the space could not be used as envisioned, and so two yurts were built as classrooms instead. (Another history kerfuffle: we have variously heard that either the fire marshal or our insurance company prohibited children under a certain age from being upstairs, but when Coordinating Team tried to track down documentation of this several years ago, we could find nothing except a fire department requirement that no more than six people should be in any one room upstairs at a time. If anyone remembers the details, let me know!)
We hope to be back at Miller Avenue some time in July. That is not set in stone, of course, and we might expect the “return date” to move around a bit. At the same time, I know we are yearning to be back in our little chapel together on Sunday mornings! We are planning a July worship schedule that will keep us nimble, we hope, and ready to return to Miller Avenue as soon as we can. For now, please note that for our July 7 worship, we will worship with our fellow UUs at Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Vista. Worship times are 9:30 am and 11 am.
Blessings and love,
Sharon
To schedule an appointment with Rev. Sharon: