We are about to embark on a covenantal relationship, which is grounded in trust and mutual support for the flourishing of our shared ministries at First Unitarian Portland. The very first step is getting to meet and to know each other.   The process of beginning to know you began with your thoughtful and dedicated Ministerial Search Team – Lia, Sarah, Chris, Ruth, David, Leslie, Saranna, and Mark. We first learned about each other in our online profiles and website, then we met on Zoom, and then finally in-person in March. We both owe them a debt of gratitude for…

“Things are not getting worse, they are being revealed…” -adrienne maree brown The leaked Supreme Court opinion promising to overturn Roe v Wade sent shock waves through our community and progressive communities across the nation. The concreteness and the aggressiveness of the language left little question about the outcome. Many of us feel this decision as a personal assault. For many it re-opens old wounds that we believed long healed. For most of us it raises fears of what will come next. I am holding especially those whose life experience is touched most directly by this decision or will be.…

You Can Never Lose a Thing, If It Belongs to You – Abbey Lincoln This is a liminal time at First Unitarian. The candidate for the minister who will follow me has been announced, but Alison is not here yet. At the same time, the finish line for my ministry grows closer so quickly but is still weeks away. It is a liminal time in the world as well as we stumble out of Covid-time into whatever the new normal will become. Liminal time. Time “between,” when the certainties and confidence of the past on which we have relied no…

As we look to the end of our church year, I’m very much aware of the endings as well as the beginnings in our community. Rev. Bill Sinkford just preached his last Easter sermon here. He’ll be in the pulpit just two more times before he retires in June. We’ve been talking about his retirement for quite a while now and still it seems to suddenly be all too near. Rev. Alison Miller arrives in a couple weeks for her Candidating Week to be the new Senior Minister. She will preach, meet and greet, and begin her ministry in this…

Before moving to Portland, I had been here only once. In the summer of 2015, I was an intern at the UUA Side With Love offices in Washington, DC, and we had business in Portland because our denomination’s General Assembly was here. As always, I appreciated the chance to be part of this big reunion of our faith community. It was here that we celebrated the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, something that so many of us had been fighting for so many years. I remember the tears of joy streaming down my face at that impromptu mid-morning party, as…

The Daffodils are starting to droop a bit. The flowering trees are giving up their spectacular colors to carpet the streets and paths near my house. The Camellias remain in riotous bloom but the signs of spring have been with us for some time. Still, the Sweet Gum tree outside my kitchen window waits. There are buds to be sure but no leaves yet. That tree has always been a late bloomer in this climate. I could be wrong, but it feels particularly late this year. Perhaps that is because the exuberant energy and openness of previous years seems hard…

For the last three Sundays we have been back in person at church. It has been wonderful to see familiar faces again and to greet people in person. And there’s been a particular gift these weeks: newcomers in person for the first time. Now we know folks have been finding the church during the pandemic—at least google analytics lets us know that. But we haven’t had names—and certainly not faces—which has made it harder to know who those folks are. I think that’s why it has been a particular blessing to meet people in person and to hear how they…

"View from the back of a train window, somewhere east of Salt Lake City" For our Staying Connected this week, I just want to offer a word of thanks to you all. This past Sunday, I preached on “Learning to be a Guest” both as a spiritual practice and a tool for reckoning with our culture’s history of settler colonialism. This was a sermon a long time in the making, beginning last summer when my partner and I took a 20 day, 4,000 mile Amtrak journey to move to Portland, Oregon from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I spent many hours…

Last Sunday was a glorious day! We welcomed congregants, some of you, back to the sanctuary. The choir on the chancel was in great voice. Children, some of them, attended classes for the first time in two years.  The energy in the sanctuary was so different from the hundred or so Sundays when the seats have been empty. Sunday was a glorious day. Such a big part of the day was renewing relationships. As I stood in the lobby before and after the service, it was like a reunion of close and dear friends. Well, that is because it was…

Who could have imagined when we went to virtual-only services two years ago that we would just be returning to in person now (with the exception of those two months at the end of last year). I imagine this is something that a lot of us are reflecting on this week as we mark the anniversary of the Covid shutdown in March of 2020. As I’ve said too many times, there has been a lot to hold in these many months. It is all a little foggy, the sense of time through all this, I have to say. Pre-Covid vs…