Happy Fall! I hope all of you are enjoying the cooler weather along with celebrations of Halloween, Diwali, and Día de Los Muertos. In my home, we celebrated Diwali and Halloween. We took a shopping trip to Artesia, video chatted with family in India, and made pakoras and pav bhaji (a Mumbai street food). I appreciated the congregation also helping us celebrate. Jewell put up lovely decorations and brought us all sweets. Our RE program talked about Diwali during lesson time. It was a beautiful Sunday! As I write this, I look forward to our celebration of Halloween and honoring Día de Los Muertos in partnership with the preschool.
On an interim note, I have told the board and transition team that the congregation may benefit from a conversation about the different roles in a church. Perhaps some definition of whose work is whose and how the roles of the staff, minister, board, and committees work together and sometimes separately. We look forward to hosting a workshop for the board and transition team from the regional Unitarian Universalist Association staff about these questions.
The transition team also continues with its work. We hope to guide the congregation into a conversation about history in the new year. By talking about our history and our unique identity as a congregation, we hope to gain a picture of whom the community might become in the next decade.
Last month, I talked about in-between time or liminal space, using the trapeze metaphor. I wanted to share a short piece by Richard Rohr on this topic. He begins:
Liminal space is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next. We usually enter liminal space when our former way of being is challenged or changed—perhaps when we lose a job or a loved one, during illness, at the birth of a child, or a major relocation. It is a graced time but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such a space, we are not certain or in control.
I hope you will read the rest of this powerful piece.
Sending love,
Chloë Briedé, Interim Minister
