Both Sides By Rev. Nina D. Grey January, 2001

January is a month of both/and-frozen air and ice and January thaws. Nature rests and waits, yet also prepares for new life. We want to stay in more, yet also sometimes feel trapped inside, and want to get out to concerts or plays or visits with friends. January is the time of one year ending and another beginning. It is the middle of a church year, yet also a time for looking within and making new decisions about our lives.

Our church community is experiencing some new beginnings, too. New babies have been born to church families. It is so wonderful to see their tiny faces and hand and their parents' loving attentions on a Sunday morning. These new expressions of life bring us joy and hope.

We are also inspired and hope you are, too, by the variety of special programs beginning to thrive or in the planning stages at First Unitarian. These include a vital Campus Ministry group, new adult education programs, and the new children's choir to begin in January. Our Social Justice Council is just embarking on a new Caregivers Project.

We have had and will have some staff changes, some endings and beginnings. Last summer, we welcomed Rev. Marlene Walker into our life and now the Installation Committee is meeting to plan our Installation of Rev. Walker on March 11. She is bringing creative leadership to our Religious Education program and the other important areas of her ministry. We have said a fond farewell to our Instrumental Music Director, Tom Weisflog, as he went to Rockefeller Chapel. We have been blessed by the wonderful piano music of Byron Dueck this fall, and we will be inspired by other fine musicians who will contribute to our worship life this winter. Our Administrator, Jesse Williams, has resigned as of Jan. 12. We will miss his gracious presence, and we are grateful to him for helping us as we enter a transitional time with our administrative responsibilities. The ministers, Board, and Administrative Committee are evaluating our needs in the administrative areas of church life, and we will have an interim person to help us for now with this work.

We are excited about the challenge and opportunities for renewal of our spiritual and religious education life, as our Sundays, Etc. group begins its work. They will engage us all in review and reflection of our Sunday morning and other programming. These are times for honoring our traditions as well as opening ourselves to change.

We invite all to join us in the warmth of January worship. We will dramatize the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 7, and recommit ourselves to the struggle for freedom of all people; remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 14, as we reaffirm our intention to strive for justice in this new year; think about our own and our families' endings and beginnings, as contemplate personal and spiritual renewal at our Jan. 21 service, and ponder the place of rest in our lives as Rev. Marlene Walker reflects on the meaning and gift of Sabbath, in the Jan. 28 service.

My holiday prayer for our members and friends is this: May we experience health in our bodies, tenderness in our relationships, joyful moments in our days, and peaceful, loving intention in our actions.

With love, in faith,

Rev. Nina Grey