In the second half of my reflection this morning, I am going to share, at least in part, the vision I have been developing over the year and a half I have served you as your Senior Minister. Before sharing, I offer this preamble.

First of all: The strength of our visioning comes from our collectivity. This is me articulating mine, adding it to our ongoing conversation of who we are and who we want to be. At the end of January, the Board held a retreat and articulated their first Annual Vision for the Ministry – maybe the first ever for this congregation. I think it’s a big deal and a sign of a healthy SHARED ministry. 

You just heard the five visionary ends which have been around for over a decade (and are likely due for an update. Those guide us; an annual vision focuses us.

While I do sit on the board as an ex-officio, non-voting member, the content of that Annual Vision for the Ministry is not my news to share. I leave it to the Board to find the right way and time to share the work they have been doing, not only to articulate that Annual Vision for the Ministry, but the goals that come out of it.

Secondly, it’s not just the Board and the Senior Minister who have vision for what this congregation could be or should be. You do, too. Or you could. Each of us – lay person, lay leader, staff, religious professionals – contributes to the collective vision – some in contradiction, but hopefully, most, in a complementary, even interdependent, fashion.  

The author, botanist, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes just such an interaction among many towards a great interdependent good in the following way, using the wisdom of pecan trees:

If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual. (Braiding Sweetgrass)

While it’s okay for the minister’s vision to be different from that of others, it wouldn’t  be such a good thing if it were at odds. That would be painful. 

If it is in sympathy, that’s a good place to start. 

And if there is resonance, synergy is possible. 

And if aligned, oh boy!: that can lead to alchemy, creating conditions in which beneficial opportunities emerge unbidden: joyful generation, the proverbial sweet spot, the cake AND the frosting, a flourishing collective interdependence!

Three: if you happen to be among those Unitarian Universalists who have an allergy against authority, let me note that sharing my vision is not a power grab. Yes, my influence here has a different weight than likely any other individual; but let me tell you, there is a stronger influence than any individual minister, or any lineage of clergy: all of you, as part of a great stream of lay people who go back 215 years: you are the generators and agents of this congregation’s vision. No doubt about it. 

Four, and lastly: if I arrived here a year and a half ago with a fully-formed vision for this ministry, that would have been a red flag. Visioning by the minister cannot ignore the people and the place that exist here, the growing edges, the passions already in process, the strengths and assets that lead a congregation one way or another. Here, in the middle of year two, what I offer today, I do so with humility. And an understanding that as soon as the words are public, you will change them with your engagement, as it should be. Most likely for the better.

Practicalities can unduly restrain my imagination. This is true in my personal life: if I don’t have money in savings, it’s hard for me to dream of a trip away. This is true in my professional life, too. I take seriously my responsibility to be reasonable and responsible with the resources of this institution.  

While there is a time and place for such an attitude, it is not this sermon. I will risk breaking those constraints, because in my role as your Senior Minister, playing small does not serve the world, nor this congregation.  

Saturday evening a week ago, just like some of you, I attended a conversation spotlighting the author, Ta-nehisi Coates, who is many things, but for the point I am making, is a Black man who currently works at a Black institution (Howard University). In the course of the conversation facilitated by Dr. Tracy Griffith, a former professor at St. Mike’s and who is also Black, they discussed what is happily lost ~ and gained ~ when working at a Black institution rather than at a PWI. 

Which it is. 

If this congregation is your spiritual home, no matter your racial identity, you know it too, consciously or unconsciously. For good or for ill, this congregation is a PWI.

Ta-nehisi Coates related that as flawed as his alma mater ~ and now employer ~ is, working there has freed him – and he didn’t say it exactly this way, this is my word choice – from the degree and level of White People Nonsense (and yes, that phrase is capitalized too, so WPN) that weighed on him and constrained his imagination in other PWI workplaces.

In that moment, one of my visions for this congregation – this PWI – crystalized: that we might become so versed (and capable and welcoming and culturally literate and most of all, racially non-defensive), especially the white people in this congregation, so as to create a space that, yes, will likely always be a PWI (we are in Vermont), but will have the versatility and facility to lift the weight for those people of color who risk making their spiritual home here; to lift the weight for those people of color and community partners outside this Society who are willing to risk partnering with this particular PWI in living out our shared values; in recognizing that as wonderful as Vermont is, it is not as wonderful for people of color, particularly Black people, as it is for white people.

Sometimes, when we talk about a UU congregation deepening our anti-racism, we get stuck on the idea that to do so, the only way is to become more multicultural and multi-racial in who is sitting in the pews. Some of us – and I have heard this repeatedly and from different white people – want to invite people of color into this PWI space, as if that would be that. Yet, without a willingness to change culturally, such suggestions sound ~ to my ears ~ like a form of window dressing – a focus on the “hues in the pews” that centers a white wish to feel better about the demographics of this particular PWI. 

I hadn’t heard that term before, but as soon as it was defined, I knew it in my bones: Predominantly White Institution. All three words capitalized, like a thing with its own culture. 

My vision for this congregation that exists in the second whitest state in the union is for every one of us, especially those of us who are white, to expand our welcome beyond tokenism; to decrease our non-defensive responses; to grow not just our culturally literacy but our emotional capacity for healthy engagement and even conflict; to bring our attention to the impact of our actions (not just assuming good intentions); and to focus on deepening our cross-cultural relationships with community partners. 

Whether the racial identity of this congregation ever changes significantly, we can be a part of accountably dismantling systems of oppression, including racism, in ourselves and in our institution.

There are smaller, more technical visions I have for this place and this people. Rather than overwhelm you with them here, or have this Sunday service go intolerably long, I think I may find a way to include them in my contribution to the congregation’s Annual Report.

That said, I must briefly mention three things:

Firstly, it seems odd to me that we do not have a campus ministry team given we are located in the same town as a university that is very likely to draw many UU students from across the nation. Odd and a missed opportunity.

Secondly, let us deepen and widen our energetic welcome for and celebration of and sanctuary embrace all-around the queer community. In the alphabet soup of the abundant human family, all the letters, baby!

Thirdly: and far too brief for the overall topic – I want and hope that anything we do as our response to the climate crisis, that it is about beings, not just buildings.

Now this vision just may break rule number four – which is to say, this may be MY wish, rather than something that becomes our vision. If that’s the case, I can live with that.

Maybe you know that 70-80% of Americans say they want to die at home, yet only about 25% do so. When there is such a mismatch between what people state they want, and what actually happens, it’s worth paying attention to what can be done to right that imbalance.

Here’s the thing: dying at home is a team sport. It requires not only people, but people who feel at least willing, and hopefully able, to tend to the person as they are dying. Many of us do not have that team, even if we have family or friends around us. What if we – here at FUUSB – were to create a culture and a calling where we provide companionship and presence for those who are dying and want to do so at home? 

This is a very specific kind of pastoral care, one that can only emerge if the basics of congregationally-based pastoral care are in place. Which we are in the process of developing, since the pandemic kind of decimated our formal, structured means of care. 

In fact, this coming Saturday, ten members of the congregation are spending the day being trained as Pastoral Visitors so that come late spring, or perhaps early fall, we will be able to add that program to our Care Network, which provides meal train coordination, the prayer shawl ministry, and the weekly message about joys, sorrows, and gratitudes on Community Messenger (we call it TLC – This Loving Community). Adding those to the planning and provision of memorial services, alongside rare visits by the one, single minister trying to tend to the needs of a 400-member congregation.

There is so much more that could be possible: like ongoing grief or care for the caregivers groups; parenting support at a time when the Surgeon General says that parenting stress is impacting the mental health not only of parents, but children. 

What if we were able to provide a dedicated spiritually-grounded space for those folks who are being directly impacted by the hate being spewed by those in the federal government – those who left hostile states and came to Vermont not only for safety, but in hopes of thriving? Those who now feel that to get through this authoritarian era, they need community – and we are it?

What if we had a crew of people who made phone calls (or texts) to every member of the congregation, at least once a year (could it be twice?) so that the only time someone hears from FUUSB isn’t at pledge time? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? 

These great activities are powerful when enacted by lay folx, but if they are to be sustained for the long-haul, there needs staff there to support such programming. 

Yet, last year, our staffing contracted and our budget was still not balanced. Where I dream of expanding staff – even considering another minister, at least half-time – the pledge income and the budget just don’t agree with me. 

Yet, I refuse to play small. It does not serve the world, this community, or this congregation and our future.

I know that at the moment, we are not in a financial position to do this. But friends, there is so much that we could do: meet the needs of an aging congregation. Meet the needs of an age-diverse congregation that is attracting more and more folks without gray hair (okay: not fully gray). To meet the needs of newcomers longing for belonging and needing just a bit of help to connect to community here.

We can ~ and I hope we will, in the coming years ~ create an even more robust space where all flourishing is mutual. May this be on your mind, as you fill out your annual pledge form to sustain this congregation which sustains you (and so many more, and so much more).

Come back next Sunday, so that we can celebrate the generosity of this place and this people. That we might all be that third builder, not just getting by, not just building a wall, but visioning the cathedral we could become.