Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Weaving the Web

March 10, 2006
Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern

I’m writing from the UUA’s triennial conference for midsize congregations, where we have been learning together about transitions in our communities. I heard the most beautiful thought from a woman in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, who has belonged to her 50-year-old church for much of its life and seen it change dramatically. It came to me as a gift that I want to share with you.

When her child was born and she gazed at this incomparably precious new face each day, she experienced a grief that she had not anticipated. Over those first few weeks, her child’s face changed almost daily, as they do as the bones shift and settle. She loved her daughter’s face so much — and then it would change. Each change was a painful loss of the face she cherished.

She realized then that she could not go on like this, becoming so deeply attached to her daughter’s beloved appearance that she would be in constant grief. After all, this was going to keep happening through her daughter’s infancy, her childhood, her adolescence and adulthood. She had instead to love the soul of her child, the inner self. It was that that she would be companion to all the rest of her life, loving it all the way through her child’s many changes.

Hearing this lovely story, I asked myself these questions, which you may want to ask yourself as well:

• What is the soul of the people I love? What do I want to cherish within them?
• What is the soul of my community?
• What is the soul of my congregation?
• What must I do to love the true core of the people and communities that are so precious to me, to companion them through all their changes?

— Blessings,
Amy