“We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-envisioned and half-remembered, we only catch glimpses of from time to time.”
          -Starhawk

Homecoming. Coming Home. The language is powerful. It suggests that each of us, as unique individuals, has a place within the community we create together. Together, we create a collective religious home in which each of us is welcomed.

This Sunday we will return to our two service schedule. We will dedicate the volunteer teachers in our religious education program and dedicate ourselves to the children of this community. I will be back in the pulpit with one of our newly reconfigured choirs on the chancel. We will welcome all of us back into community.

Beloved Community is our spiritual theme for this year. We will have the opportunity for deeper reflection on our beginnings and endings, the welcome we offer and the courage required to work for justice in the world, in our church and in our lives.

Each of us and all of us. There is a tension between the ties that bind and the yearning to be free. We sing of that tension each week: “Roots hold me close. Wings set me free.” The European traditions of mind and spirit, out of which our faith community developed, placed greater value on the “freedom” side of the equation. Most of us recognize that we need a rebalancing toward collective accountability and shared vision.

The images from the hurricane damage to the Bahamas should be proof enough that salvation is importantly collective and that our survival is at stake.

But these questions are always personal. Our September spiritual theme is “Radical Hospitality.” What welcome do we offer? What welcome are we called to offer to the various individuals with the rich diversity of identities who come to this community yearning for a religious home?

Dr. King described the power of the Beloved Community and the love at its heart: “…the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.

[Such love] can transform opponents into friends… It is this love which will bring about miracles in [our human] hearts.” …

We will explore many expressions of our vision for Beloved Community this year. Another selection from the words of Starhawk:

“Community means strength

that joins our strength to do the work

     that needs to be done.

Arms to hold us when we falter.

A circle of healing.

A circle of friends.

Someplace where we can be free.”

See you in church. Welcome home, Beloveds.

Bill