Beloved,

We have come to the end of this congregational year, and my what a year it has been for us all!  In the midst of incredible changes and shifts as well as immense loss, we also welcomed new opportunity.  Just yesterday, as you may have heard, we closed on the 695 Springfield property.  We now enter into a collective discernment period.  On Sunday, we also voted as a congregation to enter into a tri-partnership with Barót, Transylvania and Jowai, India.  Our theme for this coming year is “rooted in relationship.”  As I (Rev. Robin) turn to study and prep time for planning our August return to in-person worship and new multi-platform congregational life, I am considering what it means to move at the pace of relationship. 

We closed incredibly quickly on 695, which we had to do, but I am realizing we could only do that because of the relationships built in the preceding years for this expansion.

Long before the vote on Sunday, we had a 30-year partnership with Barót and a year-long of zoom meetings with leaders from Beacon, Barót and Jowai. 

We move more deeply into our commitments of inclusion and institution building that is anti-racist.  This work calls us to move at the pace of relationship.  White supremacy culture values efficiency at all costs.  I believe as we come into a time of discernment, new relationships, and incredible opportunities it will be important that we do not come back or return to all of the previous ways of being a community.  Decisions may take more time, or less, but should be guided by the pace of relationship.  Relationships themselves must be in the context of community rather than individual desire or will. 

As many of you know, I like to move quickly but this heat is a hard wall on most days.  As I am forced to slow down or stop, I am noticing more.  What does my community need of me?  Who is hurting?  How are we called to the healing and the transformation?  Where is joy, justice and jubilee? 

There is a reason that sacred scriptures emphasize the community (when two or three are gathered, the tribes brought together, the sangha…). We are at our best when we move, together, at the pace of relationship.\ 

Moving together and listening, 

Tuli & Reverends Robin and Emilie