June 2000
 From Your Minister
by Rev. Jane Rzepka and Linda Melski, Chair of the CLF Board
Dear Church of the Larger Fellowship Members
One of the new ways many of you communicate with one another and our board chair is through our e-mail list. So we know you've been asking, "Hey! If we can't get to the annual meeting at the General Assembly in Nashville, how can we know what's going on at the Church of the Larger Fellowship?"
Hence this report from the chair of the board, Linda Melski, and the minister, Jane Rzepka.
Like the culture at large, we have focused this year on the next thousand years! A new minister, church administrator, and half-time librarian begin the picture, adding to the long-standing talents of our part time staff: our religious education director, and bookkeeper. While tenure of another thousand years may be too much to ask, we hope to keep this excellent team, which began in September, in place for a long time.
Of course a look into the future also includes enhanced communication, thus the great strides we've made with our website. In addition to all the general information now offered, it's possible to become a Church of the Larger Fellowship member, to pledge, order jewelry, access our library catalogue, enjoy uu&me activities, and read Quest (early!) on-line.
In the Church of the Larger Fellowship world, we have always found
lots of ways to communicate back and forth. There's our 800 # telephone
line, letters, e-mail, and of course, the publications: Quest,
uu&me! (especially for children ages 8-12), and Connections
(for parents), in addition to the Unitarian Universalist Association's
periodicals, the World and Synapse (for teens). Now Church
of the Larger Fellowship members from all over the world also communicate
with one another on two e-mail lists: the
general list for CLFers, and CLF-RE, for those interested in religious
education. Soon we'll have a Church-on-Loan program list, for those
who belong to very small congregations.
As you might imagine, this focus toward the future translated into major computer hardware and software up-grades, and a transformative (and ongoing) database transfer, whereby we are attempting to catapult from 1982 to 2000!
Our annual budget and giving patterns, which once seemed ample for our needs, now, to be frank, seem seriously inadequate. We have dreams of on-line religious education classes for adults and children; worship materials available on the web; a fuller website; real-time preaching; chat rooms for responses to sermons, pastoral care, theological discussion—you name it. But unless member giving increases and we can hire more staff, our progress will be slow.
Of course the former millennium hasn't left us, and we always want to improve the quality of our publications and day-to-day interactions with members. Further, our video, audio, library book, and "Month of Sundays" collections, most materials having served at least a decade, all need a major overhaul. These projects feel urgent, but as it stands, we can only chip away at them slowly.
In short, we believe that while with more resources we could really soar, the Church of the Larger Fellowship is not only doing a wonderful job of maintaining the status quo, but of moving ahead. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the former staff of the Church of the Larger Fellowship; the current staff, who work at a breath-taking pace; the attentive Board of Directors; and the Unitarian Universalist Association, from whom we rent space and services, and their generous and supportive staff; not to mention the ministers and laypeople who volunteer their writing for our periodicals. But most of all we feel grateful for the members and friends of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, who form such a vibrant and unique congregation. Please be in touch.
Sincerely,
Linda Melski,
Chair of the Board
Jane Rzepka, Minister
Quest June 2000 Contents
 REsources for Living
Betsy Hill Williams, Religious Education Director, CLF
My friend's son died two days ago. He was 15 and had a rare form of cancer for less than a year. His condition declined very rapidly at the end. In the final days, when through my tears I wondered aloud with a friend how we could help the family, the woman I was talking with said, "She needs your prayers." Briefly, my already-heightened sense of inadequacy soared. I don't know any conventional prayers to say for this (or any other) situation the way my Christian and Jewish friends do. It is not my practice to petition a higher power for help and intervention. I have never said, "I need your prayers," to anyone.
So what do I do? She needs my prayers. I do what Unitarian Universalists have always done. I look inside myself; I listen to my heart; I feel my own inner strength, filled with love and compassion, and I make up my own prayer. And in this process I discover that my prayer is itself more of a process than a statement. It goes something like this.
First, I get very quiet; I empty my mind of all thoughts other than my friend, her son, and her family. I think hard about all the things that connect us—from our common interests to the deeper levels of human strength and frailty that we all share, particularly parents. I think about what our friendship means to me and how grateful I am to count myself as a friend. Then I think about love and how strongly I believe in its power to heal. Heal, not eliminate pain. Heal, not cure. (They say the greatest doctors know the difference.) Healing is making whole again, even if that wholeness requires surrender and acceptance of helplessness. Healing is possible only in the presence of supporting love. And so I think hard about love.
Then I let myself think about their pain. And my heart breaks a little—no, a lot. I sit quietly in sadness, that primary emotion that simply will not be denied. Before anything I ever do or say can help anyone, I have to feel the deep sadness of it all. The end of life can be a relief, it can be peaceful, it can even be beautiful. But I'm convinced it is always sad, and we must allow ourselves to feel that sadness, however briefly, if we want to be a healing force.
Finally, I think about the future and the relationships that will continue now that Carter is gone. The things we say and do in the torturous days that precede loss and all the days that follow it can build and strengthen our future together. I want to learn from this time how to offer comfort to my family and friends, how to share our sadness and fears, and how to spread hope, not for a world without pain, but for a world where loving kindness and compassion help us heal. So I think about the things that matter most to me in my relationships with others and I vow to attend to them, nurture them, now and forever.
In the midst of tragedy our faith does not abandon us or leave us helpless, as I've heard some critics say. We may not have rituals or prescribed prayers at our fingertips. We may not have the assurance of eternal peace and justice in the hereafter. But I find comfort in a faith that affirms love as a source of healing that is always available to us. I find comfort in a faith that affirms the ability of each one us to find within ourselves, and bring forth to others the healing power of love.
So my prayer is never done. I take my thoughts and feelings into the world. I share them with my family and friends. I encourage my 14-year-old daughter, who has lost a friend and classmate, to allow herself to feel it all: the joy of friendship, the fear of illness, the sadness of loss, the renewed commitment to bring her best, her full self, to
others and to life.
And I share my prayer with you. I find comfort knowing our faith is a shared faith, a community of faith, however far-flung. I am grateful for my years at CLF. My association with you has strengthened my connection to this faith community in ways my local church cannot. You may not be able to bring me a covered dish, but I know you are out there—way out there in some cases—yet, at the same time, as close as people need to be to feel supported by shared faith.
"She needs your prayers." Maybe
I can do that after all.
Quest June 2000 Contents
Last updated June 12, 2005
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