Ingathering Greeting 9/21

Ingathering Greeting
from Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray
Unitarian Universalist Association

 

To our UU community,

We have all worked extremely hard during the pandemic to keep our families, congregations and communities safe, while longing for the time when the pandemic is behind us. Unfortunately, vaccine hesitancy, breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals and the alarming contagiousness of the COVID-19 Delta variant (even among the vaccinated) call for re-evaluation of many of our plans.

While we are not able to share Ingathering services as we have in the past, nor in the ways we may have planned, these rituals are still needed. Ingathering, regardless of the form it takes, celebrates the ways we are held by a wider circle of love and care.

An Ingathering Greeting from UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

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There is great healing power in our tradition, and our work is to make that power manifest in our communities. I am inspired by the incredible creativity I witness in our congregations, by the way we are all leaning into mission and remembering how much our families, children and elders need support and ministry.

Let us continue to prioritize inclusion and consent, centering those who are most at risk, following the science, being flexible in making decisions and changing course when necessary. Our ministry is life-saving and resilient, especially when it is responsive to our realities, helping us all navigate these unprecedented and precarious times. As we celebrate Ingathering, let us draw strength from this time of renewal, this time to reaffirm our covenants and commitments to one another and to our wider community.

May we remember that care, kindness and patience—with ourselves and others—are needed in abundance. Practice these often!

We will get through this together, caring for one another and being held by the larger embrace of abiding love. Many blessings to each and every one of you.

Yours in love,

Susan


Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray spends her days strengthening the thriving mission of this faith. In her spare time, she enjoys being with her family and playing with their dog, Hercules.


Unitarian Universalist Association, 24 Farnsworth St., Boston MA 02210, United States.