The Rest of the Story

Rev. Jeanelyse Doran Adams

I am just young enough to remember listening to the radio. One of my favorite memories is the lyrical voice, of the radio commentator, Paul Harvey. Some of you may be young enough to remember him too. I still remember waiting in anticipation through the commercial break for him to finish "the rest of the story." As I remember it, often the rest of the story was a bit different than the initial story. Though now I realize Harvey's views were pretty conservative he taught my young mind a liberal value. He taught me to listen for the rest of the story. He taught me curiosity and openness. He taught me not to accept the initial story at face value.

Today the initial story could be that this is a sad day, a day to say goodbye to a beloved minister and a beloved member of this community. And that is part of the story. Today we do say goodbye to Rev. Grace and to David, both beloved members of this community who have shared in the shaping of the story of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County and indeed the shaping of the story of the Pacific Central District of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

It is always difficult to say exactly when the beginning of a story began. Both Rev. Grace's and David's stories began - maybe even before they were born, maybe when Rev. Grace first felt called to ministry and David decided to support that call. The Fellowship was established in 1953. Yet I imagine that story began with someone or maybe multiple some ones who dreamed of a liberal religious community. What we do know is that somewhere within each of these stories Rev. Grace and the members of this congregation said yes to each other. We know that some members of this congregation gave Reverend Grace a basket filled with items of hospitality and welcome. That woven basket, like the woven strands of your separate stories has been present during Reverend Grace's ministry and is here on the altar today.

We know that on October 19, 2003 Reverend Grace and the members of this congregation entered into a covenant together and celebrated that promise in an installation service. On the order of service for that installation were these words by the Rev. Dr. Jack Mendelsohn, "The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors; great congregations (whether large or small) and effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another."

At that installation Reverend Grace, David and many of you recited these words by Walter Royal Jones:

Mindful of truth ever exceeding our knowledge
And community ever exceeding our practice,
Reverently we covenant together
Beginning with ourselves as we are,
To share the strength of integrity
And the heritage of the spirit
In the unending quest for wisdom and love.

At the forming edge of the un-known blank page in the story you were about to create together you committed yourselves to truth exceeding your current knowledge and community exceeding your practice. You set your sights on the quest for wisdom and love. With the words of Walter Jones and the covenant that followed you joined your stories in a shared ministry to strive to promote peace and justice in the world, to draw courage from one another and to believe that the spirit of love could guide you. You wove your stories together and the strangest feature is that you created one another.

Together you created a new sense of community filled with confidence and a sense of possibility. Your shared ministry to strive to promote peace and justice in the world was shattered by the news of the September 11th attacks. Yet I imagine in the days that followed the attacks you drew courage from one another and asked the spirit of love to guide you. And, guide you it did - to create a choir to sing with joy and with sorrow, to feed the homeless and hungry at the Winter Shelter, and to give voice to words that might have otherwise been censored. You became a Welcoming Congregation and advocated for Marriage Equality.

In the midst of a terrible recession you drew on the strength of integrity and the heritage of spirit and lent your energy to a small, fledgling group of Unitarian Universalists who had a dream of their own. You offered support and guidance to people in Merced to help them build a new congregation.

You did not stop there. When others drew in and protected their assets you dreamed of serving more. You began to build an education building to continue a legacy of love, of justice, and of service. In the face of set backs and complications you held tight to the promise of exceeding your knowledge and your practice of being a liberal religious community.

In her sermon just a few weeks ago Reverend Grace said that you had become the talk of the Pacific Central District. She was right. Though she failed to mention that you have become a symbol of hope, not just in our District but also for many congregations in our Association. You never gave up. Your commitment and your vision for the future, no matter how cloudy or unclear sustained you through setbacks and complications. Together you built and dedicated a new Education Building. I was privileged and filled with joy to celebrate that dedication with you. It is an honor to be part of the ongoing story that you are creating.

You have demonstrated that the reverend Mendelsohn was right, the future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors; great congregations (whether large or small) - just like yours - and effective, dedicated ministers - just like Reverend Grace. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.

Just like the woven strands of this basket the stories of this congregation and the stories of Reverend Grace and David are forever woven together. Together you have created a container of hospitality and welcome, a container of peace and justice, of love and wisdom, of service, of song and of prayer. Together you have created and shaped a larger story. You have helped to create one another.

The goodbyes of today may feel like the unraveling of the stories. They may even feel as final, as empty, or as sad as Charlotte's last breath in Charlotte's Web. But the story does not end with Charlotte's death or with those sad goodbyes. Charlotte had laid eggs. Those eggs carried new life. Wilbur tenderly took those eggs bearing new life back to the farm because he loved Charlotte and because Charlotte and Wilbur had helped to create one another. Just as each of you have contributed to the creation of each other and this congregation you have laid the eggs of new life within each other. Each of you, like Wilbur can take them and nurture and foster them until the wind is just right and that new life is ready to take flight on the wind like Charlotte's spiders.

The winds of change are teasing apart your connections. Like the spiders in Charlotte's Web you are being cast upon the wind, your individual destinations and futures not yet, quite fully known.

I wonder what it might be like to be a spider, trusting and resting on the currents of the wind. Is it like the breathless, nearly frozen moment when a trapeze artist is suspended and grasping in the in-between space between swinging bars? Or is it like the relaxed sigh of riding gentle waves on a wind-caressed lake?

It is hard to know what Charlotte's newly hatched spiders might have experienced when the floated into the wind. However, when we humans are cast into the liminal space between here and there we can often feel bereft, confused and angry. We can blame the circumstances, each other or ourselves. We can reach for false safety, swift answers, or hide in denial. Though, there we are riding on the wind just like Charlotte's spiders, sometimes forgetting that the nearly invisible thread within the interdependent web of existence is holding us - that the connections between our stories are binding us in the unending quest for wisdom and love.

Our faith tells us that from the beginning of time and the beginning of the story we are woven within a great web of life and love that cannot be torn apart. The love that we have known and shared binds us together beyond space and time. We cannot be separated no matter how far we apart we go. We may not know the end of the story or even the rest of the story but the eggs that carry the life of the future are held within and among us. Together we create a woven basket of hospitality and welcome, of love and justice, song and dance. Together we create a basket of woven promises that can hold and nurture new life, new ministries and new possibilities.

In this time between here and there when the winds of change are teasing you apart may you remember what you have learned from each other, what you hold dear about each other, and how your love and your can do attitude have shaped and prepared the ground for the rest of the story. A story of shared ministry that you will no longer share, yet always share because of how you have touched and created one another.

Reverend Grace and David, you will join your family and a new life - finding new ways to serve and to minister. And you, the members and friends of this congregation will join together to weave a new story of welcome and hospitality with the help of a transitions minister. When the winds of change are just right you will say yes to a new called minister. When you do, perhaps, on the order of service for that installation there will once again be the words by the Rev. Dr. Jack Mendelsohn, "The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors; great congregations (whether large or small) and effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of your relationship is that you will create one another.

And, as one who has been blessed to share a piece of your story and as one who is excited to be part of your on going story I trust this congregation to create, yet again another great minister - just as I trust another minister to, ".share the strength of integrity, and the heritage of spirit, in the unending quest for wisdom and love," with you, as together you create each other and a shared ministry of love and justice here in the heart of Stanislaus County. Amen, blessed it be - may the winds of change nourish us all as we create together new stories of shared ministry.

[Delivered October 30, 2011. Rev. Jeanelyse Doran Adams is the Director of Congregational Services for the Pacific Coast District, UUA.]

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