April 2009

A Unitarian Universalist Sunrise

BY BARBARA MERRITT, SENIOR MINISTER, FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

As our poet said early Sunday morning, “people have huddled on a dark hillside waiting for the first rays of the sun since the beginning of time.”

But it is my contention that Unitarian Universalists have our own “unique” ways of waiting.

I guess I must take a lion’s share of the blame. Having called the library to find that the sun rose at 5:38, I had arranged the service so that we, like Mary Magdalene, could begin our Easter morning activities while it was still dark. Even at 5:15 the day is already filling with light, but the darkness is still evident as well. Beginning early you can witness the dramatic changes of the night receding and the breaking of the day.

The service proceeded quite smoothly, and at 5:38 we were just where I wanted us to be. The sun itself would deliver the benediction as it rose behind the hill.

Only nothing happened. The sky was quite beautiful as we stood in the silence, but there was no sun.

Initially, I whispered to my colleague (in true skeptical form) “maybe it’s not going to come up this morning.” (There was little doubt in my mind that the sun had been rising quite faithfully in the east for a good many years, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was going to come through for me when I really needed it.)

I put my own personal anxiety into perspective by quoting authoritative scripture to the assembled congregation. The library had told us that the sun would arrive at 5:38. (It was now 5:42.)

We then put it out for committee discussion. Several perceptive parishioners shared their observation that we had already seen the sunrise. The way the clouds were banked had blocked any direct viewing of the sun itself. And we concurred that morning had broken, and that we’d seen all that there was to see. I was not particularly disappointed. It had been a beautiful morning. The congregation was dismissed.

And then, as we were scattering at 5:44, someone shouted for us to look again to the east, and there, coming up like thunder, was the most magnificent blazing red sun that you’d ever want to see. We all stood in silent awe.

The minister was humbled, yet again. It turns out the library had given us sunrise time in Boston, on the ocean, and it takes a little longer for the sun to go west and climb the hills.

First doubt and impatience, then anxiety, then a committee discussion, than resignation to the facts at hand, and finally, the stunning and glorious realization of the miracle at the heart of the creation: a Unitarian Universalist sunrise.