At the last Board of Trustees meeting Kate Vereb gave this reading. I liked it so much that I decided I wanted to share it with you.

 

Community Means Strength

By Starhawk

 

We are all longing to go home to some place

we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned

we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.

Community.

Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion

without having the words catch in our throats.

Somewhere a circle of hands

will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter,

voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.

Community means strength

that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.

Arms to hold us when we falter.

A circle of healing.

A circle of friends.

Someplace where we can be free.

 

Over these last two years being on Zoom, we have enjoyed powerful Sunday services and many groups have continued to meet online. But one of the things hardest to keep up, in my opinion, has been the strong sense of community we had enjoyed prior to the pandemic.  Having a strong community is one of the most commonly mentioned qualities desired by our congregants in all the surveys we have done over the years.  We can learn on our own, we can grow spiritually on our own, we can fight for social causes on our own but we can’t create community on our own.  By being in community, we gain people who care about us and support us and love us. As we move back to in-person services, may the joy and power of community grow deeply in us all.

 

Love,

Anne