First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation: “How rare it is, how lovely, this fellowship of those who meet together.” - Psalm 133

“An Antidote to Loneliness”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 5, 2012

Readings attached at end: Psalm 139:1-15
Psalm 40:4-10

I had a salesman come to my house to demonstrate an an appliance. It was unusual- in fact the last time I can remember my having someone in for a sales demonstration was in 1976. But I had the time and a mild interest, so I let him come.
He was a nice young man, well-groomed and polite, who knew his product, explaining it clearly and carefully. He was enthusiastic about it, his presentation patter well-rehearsed. I found it mildly interesting. What I found more interesting was the side-patter. In the course of his efforts to establish rapport, he asked me what I did. I told him I was a minister.
Well, that opened the flood-gates for him. He was, it seemed, suddenly more interested in taking about his religion that he was in taking about his product. I listened.
He was an Orthodox Christian; he told me…an assertion he repeated often- an Orthodox Christian. But he didn’t go to church. He has a friend who is a Presbyterian who is always trying to get him to go with him to his church, but our friend the salesman had no interest in that. He thought that churches were a waste of time.
I looked puzzled and curious. “What does that mean then, to you,” I asked. “To be an Orthodox Christian?”
He was thrilled by the question and he told me. He believes in the bible. He studies the bible. He has an on-line pastor who is in Texas. This pastor, he assured me, was extremely well educated. He could understand several languages, including biblical Hebrew, biblical Greek, and Aramaic. Since he could read the whole bible in its original languages, and he was so scholarly and well-informed, this pastor really understood what the original meanings of the bible were, what they meant when they were written, and he could explain that in these on-line bible study classes.
“Oh,” I said, “So with the help of this on-line pastor and his bible study you are able to understand and practice what it means to be a Christian?”
“Absolutely.”
“So there is no need for you to participate in a church of any kind?”
“That’s right. I get everything I need on-line through these bible studies.”
“Well,” I said, “I know that everyone reads things differently in the bible…”
He interrupted me to tell me that that was why this scholar-pastor as so important- because he read it correctly.
I continued. “It seems to me, from my reading of the bible, that the very first thing God did after delivering the people Israel out of bondage was to call them together into a congregation. He didn’t talk to them separately. He talked to them as a congregation.”
The man looked puzzled.
“You see,” I said, “All through the bible, God calls people into congregations. That is how God wants people to be.–in community. All the apostles went out into the world to gather people into churches, where they shared, they learned, they ate together, they worshipped.
The entire story of God and God’s people happens in the context of congregational life. I don’t know how you can read the bible and not know that you need to become a part of a congregation.”
I might as well have been speaking another language. He was not getting my point. He was not understanding that I was challenging his claim to being a biblically observant Christian.
So, since he wanted to stay in rapport with me, as any good salesman would, he changed the subject- slightly. He told me that he was working hard, and earning an income because he was saving up and going back to school. He wants to become a minister.
“Really?” I said. He had recaptured my interest. “And where are you going? To what seminary?”
He named a school of which I had never heard. I said so, and asked about it.
“Oh,” he explained, “It is an on-line school.”
“You are going to learn to be a minister by going to an on-line school?” I asked to make sure that I had understood.
He smiled and nodded. I gave up. I smiled and nodded my encouragement, urged him to get on with the demonstration, and realized that there was no way I would be able to convey to this young man that ministry, faith formation, authentic religious practice require more than a virtual community. That essential to my understanding of faith, was the component of relationship, authentic relationship not only with one’s higher power, but with one’s human co-habitants of this earth and its life. It is one of the reasons I was so drawn to the bible. It is the story of a people, not a person, the story of God’s love, anger, joy and frustration with the whole of humankind, and the intense longing for love to prevail, and relationships be made right.
Clearly the salesman and I had a different faith. We read and interpreted our shared sources very differently. I was troubled for him. And I realized how central the Unitarian Universalist principles are to my understanding of best faith practices, for all of them have something to say about what it means to be a person in right relationship to one another and to our environment. There is something solid about the wisdom of our Unitarian Universalist history and tradition embodied in our principles that insists that being human and being human religiously, is a matter of being human in community.
We came to that understanding initially through our grounding the bible. After all, our forebears, heretics though they be, understood theirs as a biblical faith. They read the book, and came up with truths they perceived to be universal. Among them, that human beings were created to live together in community. The bible teaches it both explicitly and implicitly, since all of the stories are in one way or another, about community life.
Studies have been done on Americans and their relationships. The General Social Survey performed in 1985 found that the average number of confidants Americans had was about 3. These were people with whom the respondent could discuss personal issues or matters of importance to them. In 2004, when the survey was repeated, the average number of confidants Americans reported was down to 2. Twenty five percent of Americans reported that they had no one with whom they could talk about personal matters or matters of importance to them. Let me repeat that. 25% of Americans in 2004 reported that they had zero confidants. And that was back in 2004- following the trend, we can confidently predict that the numbers of people with few or no confidants in 2012 is larger still.
The study further examined the nature of the confidants that people do have. They discovered that the circle of available confidants is closing in on us as a people. In 1985, 57% of the people reported that the only people they could talk to about important matters were within the family. So, of their three named confidants, for 57% of the people, none of them were friends. By 2004 the number of people who could only talk to family members about important matters was up to 80% 80%!
Eighty percent of Americans in 2004 had no friends with whom they could discuss matters of importance to them. And we can see the trend. By 2012 it is likely to be much higher still.
With all of the electronic communications systems we have at our disposal, with cell phones, smart phones, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, instant messaging, we have communication – of things that are not important. When I was asking someone about this curiosity she said, “Why would you tell someone something important or personal, when it could easily end up splashed all over the internet?” Sobering. I had not thought of that. My kids are grown. I don’t splash things all over the internet. But her kids are still in school, where the internet is a live wire sending out all kinds of material that quickly goes viral.
“Why would you tell someone something important or personal, when it could easily end up splashed all over the internet?” Sobering. We are so busy “connecting” spending minutes or hours each day on some form of communication device, and still we, as Americans, are profoundly lonely. We are a lonely people. And the tools we are offered cannot address the deep hurt the isolation inflicts. There is a reason why in those deeply moving emotional psalms the speaker says to God:
O Lord you have searched and known me,
You know when I sit down and rise up:
You discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down.
And are acquainted with all my ways. (Psalm 139:1-3)
We want to be known-long for it-always have. We have been writing of the pain of loneliness and the longing to be known for thousands of years.
We dwell in a land and a culture steeped in loneliness, in isolation, in separation. Desperate for connection, for meaning, for the experience of knowing others and being known, people turn to that which cannot nourish them, the electronic communications and quick and easy surface conversation that looks like relationship but does not feed or serve us. We are left alone when the need for a friend is great; bereft, we are alone with our stories. Or so it could be, if we do not extend the effort and accept the risk that comes with becoming part of a community.
The Psalmist calls out joy and pain, angst and gratitude in the context of the great congregation, teaching us: this is a way to manage, this is a way to survive..
My friends, you, here, have taken that risk. You are the antidote to the lonesomeness epidemic. You have created community. Religious community. You have a faith that understands in its core that human beings were not created to be alone, but rather, we were created to share our lives, our joys and sorrows, our gifts and needs. This is the meaning and purpose of religious community.-to help us be fully human in the presence of life, embracing the Great Wonder of which we are a part.
Congregational life can do this. Where else can we gather across generations, interests, affinities, gender, education, class and physical capacities, and be together, not defined by the groups to which we belong, or the positions we have achieved, but accepted as we are, as we have come, without excuse or conditions. You are part of this community because you have shown up and chosen to participate. To the extent that you do so, your loneliness will be ameliorated, the days of your life will be enhanced and you will know what it means to be blessed.
And I wonder about all of those people who are not here, who are not gathered in any house of worship. What are they doing? How will they be sustained? Will they become part of the legions of the lonely?
My friends, you are the antidote to the lonesomeness epidemic. You hold the treasure that need not be secret, and that multiplies when shared. Your light, of hope and faith, of authentic community in which joys and sorrows are shared, your light of acceptance and welcome, is the beacon of salvation, healing the broken and lonely world. It is too precious to hide under a bushel. In these days when there is so much we have been given we need to do more than offer thanks – there is role for us- to offer hospitality to a hurting lonely world.
May there be the peace of safe havens. May there be hope that authentic communities can be forged. May there be love, and an open heart, and may it begin with us.
Amen.
—————-

Reading: Psalm 139:1-15 (New International Version)
You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Psalm 40:4-10

Happy are those who make
the Lord their trust,
who do not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after false gods.
You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us;
none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt-offering and sin-offering
you have not required.
Then I said, ‘Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.*
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.’

I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
0 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.

This week’s update is a little tricky, because we spent our Sunday morning Religious Education time preparing a presentation for this week’s Time With the Children. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so just a general outline:

We began in Trueblood Hall with the “name toss game”; a favorite way (of all of us) to begin the morning, burning a little energy, introducing visitors and new friends, and helping us get ready for the stillness of our opening ritual. We moved to the Atkinson room to light our chalice and sing Come, Come Whoever you Are from the grey hymnal. We engaged in the spirit of community with our sharing ritual. One at a time, each person is invited to share a piece of news (or not) while placing a stone in the bowl of water (or not — each person chooses how they would like to participate). Once again, the fortunes of a certain local sports team were a main topic of sharing time. This ritual offers us a chance to practice respectful listening, a learned skill that takes lots of practice!

Next, we reviewed the Bible stories of the past few weeks, and chose one, the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, to share with the congregation. The children find much to relate to in this story. They decided upon the most important elements, and how they might convey those in the physical space of the Meeting House. They practiced telling the story in a variety of ways and settled on a plan. There was some creative revision involving the powers of flight, invisibility and time travel, but I believe those scenes were left on the cutting room floor. And that’s as much as I can reveal now; the rest will unfold on Sunday morning.

Happy February 2, the day which marks the “quarter turn” of the earth; halfway through the dark half of the year. In some places the next season’s seeds were blessed today; nowadays we may leaf through seed catalogs while waiting to see if the groundhog sees his shadow.

However you observe this day, I hope you are well and happy. I look forward to seeing you in the Meeting House on Sunday; if we miss you, please find a recap of the morning’s events here in the middle of next week.

Jill

Last Sunday (1/22) the children participated in a “One-Room Schoolhouse” in the Parish House. Fifteen children aged 3-11 joined together to hear the same Bible story that the congregation was hearing in the Meeting House.

In the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman, Jesus has a “used to think, now I know” moment. Through an encounter with a not-Jewish woman in which Jesus and the woman speak to each other in riddles, Jesus realized that his message of love and justice was not only for the Jewish people, as he “used to think” but was really meant for everyone, everywhere. Knowing that, he went forth with new understanding.

Many of the children were able and willing (which speaks to their comfort with and trust of the group) to share a “used to think, now I know” moment from their own experience. Through the course of our conversation we covered several topics:

• that Jesus the Christmas baby is the same person as Jesus the grown-up man in this and other stories;
• that Jesus the grown-up man “went about doing good” (as Peter said of him) by helping sick people feel better and sad people feel more hopeful;
• that because Jesus often told stories or spoke in riddles in order to teach something people then and now have to think about the story and work out the message for themselves;
• that many of Jesus’s stories told people to be good and kind to everyone, not just the people that they liked, or that looked like them or liked the same things they did, but everyone.

We reviewed Bible stories from the last few weeks, inviting volunteers to act out the story of Moses leading the people out of Egypt and Jacob and Esau quarreling over Isaac’s blessing and later reconciling. I asked the children to begin thinking about which parts of these stories and our conversations they’d like to share with the congregation during the Time with the Children on February 5.

We also had a children’s worship in which we sang hymn #188 Come, Come Whoever You Are, lit our chalice, and observed our sharing ritual which involves placing a stone in a bowl of water. Quite a number of “shares” involved looking forward to that afternoon’s Big Football Game, often including (not surprisingly) a prediction for a hometown win.

We ended our morning together with a special treat of cocoa, conversation and drawing.

Thought for Contemplation- “A sermon can be foolishly spoken and wisely heard” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The Truth Comes Knocking”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
January 22, 2012
Readings attached at end:
Matthew 15:21-28
Fault Line by Robert Walsh
the light that came to lucille clifton, by lucille clifton

Come with me to that hot and dusty place, long, long ago. Very different from where we live now, how we live now.
Come with me to that place where there is a young man preaching and teaching a better way to live. A man who is going from town to town, gathering to gathering helping anxious people find a way to manage their lives and even to be happy in difficult and stressful times, times when they do not feel like they have a lot of control over what is happening to them.
Oh, so maybe it is not that different from where we live now, how we live now. His people, a people within a nation, are in trouble. He thinks they need to get back to basics, not back to the law, but back to the reasons why the law was written, back to the moral and ethical principles from which the law was created. He runs into resistance all along the way. The leaders are protectors of the tradition, the tradition as they value, remember and preserve it, even when it seems the tradition is no longer relevant nor is it serving its intended purpose.
The young man is earnest, indefatigable. Goal driven. He is going to wake up his people and get them to claim their power. And his friends, like any good team, support him by doing some of the up-front preparation work, and by protecting him from distractions. As they travel, he and they want to “keep on message.”
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

They are doing their job, his disciples, keeping the entourage moving, on track, on time, focused. Jesus is right with them.
He answered (the woman), “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Jesus is clear. He knows what he is there for. He is staying on message.
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

This woman is clear too. She is desperate.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Jesus persists. Disciplined. Clear. Staying on goal, on message. He knows what he is about. It may sound a little harsh, but he’s got to get out of there. Even Jesus, human Jesus, can get irritated and he does. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the cameras were running.
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
………
the light that came to lucille clifton
came in a shift of knowing
when even her fondest sureties
faded away. …
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”

My friends, this is my most favorite of all the stories about Jesus, one of my most favorite stories in the bible. It captures the moment when Jesus “gets it,” when Jesus’ whole world is broken open, when his perceived mission is exposed as too small, when his perceived objectives too limited. “Oh My God!” he surely must have said to himself, if not out loud, when he grasped it, and its implications. “Oh My God!” You don’t want me to just teach peace and justice and good honest governance to my folks here; you want me to tell the world. You want me to heal not only my broken people in my little corner, you want me to offer hope and peace and power to everyone, to the Canaanites and the Samaritans, and to anyone who comes in search.
In that split moment Jesus hears the woman, hears her plea and her challenge and must make a decision.
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”

And he does. He answers the door at which the truth is knocking.
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Never again could Jesus dismiss or disregard the issues of those who were not part of his people, Israel. No longer could he turn a blind eye to the suffering of those outside. Jesus’ whole sense of mission and purpose came undone and needed to be reconstructed. Could he do that? Could he become not only a prophet to Israel, but to the world? How wide could he open his door?
It was at this deciding moment that Jesus gave up tribalism and nationalism and understood that God’s compassion, God’s love; God’s yearning for justice was for all of the people, not just Israel. It must have been painful for him when he “got it.”

I find it reassuring to know that I am not the only one who sometimes finds my world view challenged, and my very self cracks open.

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting
and in separating, wondering
and telling, unaware that just beneath
you is the unseen seam of great plates
that strain through time? And that your life, already
spilling over the brim, could be invaded,
sent off in a new direction, turned
aside by forces you were warned about
but not prepared for? Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set at an angle in
some second’s shaking. You would have to take
your losses, do whatever must be done
next.

What could make that happen? Make the plates beneath your life shift? What could do that? Almost anything. The betrayal by a trusted friend, loss of a job or a spouse, or a child.
What could do that? Almost anything. Hitting the lottery, falling in love, being offered an opportunity.
What could do that? Almost anything. Joining AA or Al-Anon, volunteering for something you’ve never done or thought to do before, taking up a spiritual practice.
What could do that? Almost anything. Having someone you love diagnosed with a dreadful illness, being faced with foreclosure, parenthood, grandparenthood, retirement.
What could do that? Almost anything. I can’t name them all, and neither can you, because the essence of the shifting of the plates that under gird our lives, is that it happens. We didn’t know the plates were there, or that they could shift. We thought we were on solid ground, or at least stable ground.
When I felt the call to ministry it was both exhilarating and terrifying. And it wreaked havoc on my life. The rewards are unceasing. The cost was high. I needed to re- craft my identity and my vision of my future and my place in the world. The people I knew would laugh at me. That was my fear. But the truth was furiously knocking. I would fail. The responsibility was too great, the expectations too high. I would fail. But the truth was furiously knocking. It was a weird thing to choose to do. I would lose my friends and my comfortable relationships. But the truth was furiously knocking.
Maybe you have heard it knocking on your door, whatever your truth is. Maybe you have answered it, or maybe you have tried to nail the door shut and cover it with padding to dull the knocking. But in my experience when such truth knocks and you answer, you will find what you need, you will survive, in-tact in your new self; you will thrive; your soul will grow and flourish. And there will be people to help you.
The fault line is scary, but it is not the end.

When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw is seen
to lie in what you trusted most, look not
to more solidity, to weighty slabs
of concrete poured or strength of cantilevered
beam to save the fractured order. Trust
more the tensile strands of love that bend
and stretch to hold you in the web of life
that’s often torn but always healing. There’s
your strength. The shifting plates, the restive earth,
your room, your precious life, they all proceed
from love, the ground on which we walk together.

Those words are true. You can trust them. For just as surely as we live on fault lines, we live in community. For just as surely as unsettling truths knock on our doors, the universe holds us in its unshakable embrace. For as long as we walk on the road of life there are others sharing the journey, feeling the tremors, opening the scary doors, proceeding, ever proceeding from love, the ground we walk upon together.
Have courage my friends. You do not do the walk alone.

“Fault Line”

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting
and in separating, wondering
and telling, unaware that just beneath
you is the unseen seam of great plates
that strain through time? And that your life, already
spilling over the brim, could be invaded,
sent off in a new direction, turned
aside by forces you were warned about
but not prepared for? Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set at an angle in
some second’s shaking. You would have to take
your losses, do whatever must be done
next.

When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw is seen
to lie in what you trusted most, look not
to more solidity, to weighty slabs
of concrete poured or strength of cantilevered
beam to save the fractured order. Trust
more the tensile strands of love that bend
and stretch to hold you in the web of life
that’s often torn but always healing. There’s
your strength. The shifting plates, the restive earth,
your room, your precious life, they all proceed
from love, the ground on which we walk together.
Rev. Robert Walsh In “Noisy Stones”
…………………
the light that came to lucille clifton
came in a shift of knowing
when even her fondest sureties
faded away. it was the summer
she understood that she had not understood
and was not mistress even
of her own off eye. then
the man escaped throwing away his tie and
the children grew legs and started walking and
she could see the peril of an
unexamined life.
she closed her eyes, afraid to look for her
authenticity
but the light insists on itself in the world;
a voice from the nondead past started talking,
she closed her ears and its spelled out in her hand
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”
……….

Matthew 15:21-28
New International Version (NIV)
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

This past Sunday the RE children began the morning in the Meeting House. I told the congregation a version of the story of Jacob and Esau, who were the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Their story is a long one, and is only part of an even longer story that includes their grandfather, Abraham and Jacob’s sons, Joseph and his brothers. The part we looked into on Sunday was the struggle between Jacob and Esau — to inherit Isaac’s estate, to soak up all their parents’ love, to outshine each other, to “win.”

In the course of their sibling struggles, Jacob stole the blessing Isaac intended to give Esau, then ran far away to escape Esau’s wrath and vow of revenge. Many years later, the brothers met again, Jacob overcoming his fear of Esau in his desire to be reconciled, and Esau “forgetting” his anger out of love for his brother. You can read Rev. Anita’s sermon on this topic, which explores some similar and some different aspects of the story than I did with the children.

When I asked the children what was the most important part of the story, they first focused on the brothers’ relationship: “be nice to your brother.” I pointed out that the story doesn’t tell us that either brother ever apologized, just that they met and were not angry. “You mean Esau just FORGOT about it?” one child demanded. They discussed that idea for a while, whether they would be able to forget such a transgression, whether they would want to, whether forgetting was the only option in this case. They did not reach a conclusion, which puts them in the very good company of centuries of scholars who have (and continue to) debate the meaning of these ancient stories and their implications for modern lives.

We also talked about the idea of “blessing.” What is it? Who can do it? Is it only for something big, or can a blessing be as simple as “good morning”? There were many opinions. Some thought that saying ‘good morning’ or ‘have a nice day’ does nothing; some suggested that it only has an effect on the person who SAYS something like that — “it doesn’t change the other person’s day, but it makes you feel good.” Some thought blessing is like magic.

When we reached the natural end of this discussion the children chose to play some cooperative games rather than do an art project. We played the Name Toss game, Would You Rather, Simon Says and a complicated version of hide and seek that requires patience, working together and trust. Even though this last game was designed for older groups, they showed thoughtfulness and real cooperation, and liked it so well we played it over and over.

Rev Anita and I try, whenever possible, to include similar themes in the “big church” and the “little church”. I hope that posting this recap of RE activities will foster conversations about what we as a congregation did together and separately on Sunday morning.