We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Beloveds, what pleasure there is in writing you now, as if for the first time.
I have been on a journey, and so surely have you. From a distance I have watched and prayed for you as you have experienced the retirement of one faithful ministry and the rooting of another.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
Surely in our time apart, children have grown older, loved ones have died, and some of us have become sick.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
Surely in our time apart, babies have been born, new loves have developed, and ideas have sprouted and even blossomed.
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
So let us begin at the end and end at the beginning. Here -- this memo a marker of a new relationship between us and also perhaps an epitaph for what was or what is now becoming, or both -- let me mark this place with love and gratitude.
Early this summer, after seeking input from you, the Prudential Committee voted to sponsor me as a Candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministry. Congregational sponsorship gives our national ministerial credentialing body some assurance that those of us studying for Unitarian Universalist ministry are doing so with the blessing and support of local congregations who know us and see ministerial potential in us, even when we are still deep in the formation process. Your vote of confidence in me has been a true gift.
The Rev. Sarah Stewart indicated that you might appreciate hearing from me every now and again, about the things that seminarians study and reflect on as well as about my thinking on our faith and its future. So that is what I write just a little about to you now, and even more down the line.
When, five years ago, I came to Yale Divinity School, I came knowing that as a Unitarian Universalist (UU), I would be in a denominational minority. In my first year I discovered that I was in the company of a couple other UUs. We created a UU student group, which now has about ten members.
Though we are a denominational minority in a Christian theological school, we are far from alone. I took preaching with a Muslim student, a Baptist, a Lutheran, and an African Methodist Episcopal. I have studied Hebrew scripture with several Episcopalians, a Jew, and an Evangelical Christian.
Early on in my studies, I gave a lot of thought to how I wanted to situate myself in this diverse religious crowd. Did I want to stand out, asserting theological differences as a way to learn more about them? Or did I want to keep the differences more tucked away, emphasizing the commonalities as a way to create a sense of fellowship and harmony in my growing interfaith connections.
I have vacillated between these approaches and everything in between. What I have been practicing is being faithful and accountable to a wide circle of religious brothers and sisters. In times like these, when anti-Muslim rhetoric is on the rise, it feels particularly significant that I am bound up in this web and at least partially responsible for our interdependent parts.
The question of whether to celebrate and learn from differences, or whether to emphasize and make primary the things we share in common, is very much a parallel to work we do in our Unitarian Universalist congregations all the time, where religious pluralism abounds.
It is also work of the world. Do we celebrate and learn from racial differences or do we take comfort in our commonalities, for example? We often answer yes, and we often answer no, and these decisions shape our relationships in various ways. We are inextricably bound up in this web of interdependent parts, accountable to one another.
Warmly in Faith,
Sierra-Marie
