Both Sides By Rev. Nina D. Grey August, 2003

Many Sundays we say the affirmation: Love is the spirit of this church, And service its law.
This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, To seek the truth in love, And to help one another.

Last year I gave sermons about most of our affirmation but, due to my surgery schedule, I didn't have time to talk about "helping one another". It's just as well that I saved it for August 10, because, in the meantime, I have learned and remembered a great deal more personally about what it means. I have learned it, this time, through being the one who is helped. I remembered more because of conversations with Polly McCoo and Madeiria Myrieckes. And I deepened my thinking by having enough quiet time to reflect on the meanings of the words.

There is a reciprocity in the flow between the one who helps and the one who is helped. We both care and are beneficiaries of caring. Post-surgery some 'helpers' entered into my life and I got a taste of some of that reciprocity.

Between the first three weeks of that recovery and my July vacation time, I had conversations with the chairpersons of our Caring Committee. Polly McCoo and I remembered who in our church needs caring and who are the caregivers. We thought about how much of the church-related care giving is often done by people who are not members of the Caring Committee. Madeiria Myrieckes helped me realize how the impulses of our helping extend beyond our congregation.

In reflection time, I contemplated how the deep work of helping often doesn't even look like traditional caring. In the quiet of recovery and vacation I thought about how caring is supported or diminished by institutions and circumstances, how what we do in many areas of life, in church and out, can help to create caring environments for the growing of people of all ages. As I re-enter fully into our church life this August, I feel awe and gratitude to be part of this community whose spirit is love and whose work is the work of caring. In my sermon, August 10, I will share stories which point toward helping another as a partnership and explore expansive dimensions of caring.

In the middle of August, Millie Rochester, who is our new Interim Minister for Religious Education, will enter our community. Please welcome her, begin to get to know her, and help her begin to know us and be with us in ministry. August brings us toward the start of fall and the reality of both new beginnings and continuity. Newcomers to our community and Unitarian Universalism will enter our doors. New Religious Education programs will be prepared for September. Worship schedules will be created for the fall. We move forward to build on the decisions we have recently made: to discover a more clear sense of direction. Join with us in the significant work and joy of caring and being cared for, and of creating caring environments for the growing, healing, nurturing, welcoming, reconciling, justice-making work of the church.

With love, in faith,

Nina