Minister’s Letter — February 2008

On My Mind: Our Faith and Social Action

In our September Newsletter I outlined the areas I believe we need to focus on to strengthen our ministry: Religious Education, music, family life, and
social responsibility. I believe many of you have responded and are working to broaden our ministry in all the areas mentioned. As you know, we will be welcoming the Rev. Dr. Ed Thompson, minister of music from the Westport UU Congregation along with its Chamber Choir to our Fellowship on February 3rd. He will also speak with us about the music ministry program at Westport.

Religious Education is utilizing a new team-teaching approach with our children and everyone is expressing enthusiasm about that. Marjorie Redleaf continues to work in a dedicated fashion, leading a parents support group. And last week I attended a Social Action Committee meeting and left feeling very positive about the work and enthusiasm of the committee members.

Our social action work is an integral part of the life of our Fellowship. Martin Luther King Day reminded me once again how important it is for the human community to work for justice and healing and attend to those who need help and support in the larger community. King often referred to the Beloved Community of believers– not believers in anything, but believers in justice and love. King’s vision of beloved community has always fashioned my outlook in the ministry. As a UU, I have faith in the abilities of human beings to work for the common good, heal the social disruptions around them, and assume responsibility for those who, beyond their own true efforts, remain hungry, alone and sick. The source of this work is love. This love I speak of is not romantic love but the divine “call” to humanity. I believe the very meaning of history is to be found in the struggle for community and working toward the fulfillment of humanity. I believe this is the divine purpose of our existence. This is my faith. In my opinion, in this struggle the only reliable “object” of my faith and devotion is Agape–love– the power of God– which reconciles and reunites us. This was King’s faith and he was able to truly revolutionize the values of his time.

One of my favorite UU theologians, James Luther Adams, writes that the prophetic liberal church is the church in which all members share the common responsibility to attempt to foresee the consequences of human behavior with the intention of making history in place of merely being pushed around by it. . . . He also wrote: !. a faith that is not the sister of justice is bound to bring people to grief.

I believe our social action work is an integral part of our Fellowship. At its best, Social Action work can strengthen and enlarge and vitalize a congregation. It can build community, nourish the spiritual life of members, and shape public life. While what I have written may sound lofty on this page, it remains in my mind that the core reason we assemble is not only to heal ourselves but to help heal the world around us–whether it be ministering to those among us who are lonely, feeding the hungry in Peekskill, working together to save our environment, working for justice in the gay and lesbian community, combating racism, or working for justice among oppressed peoples on another continent.

I believe there is a transforming, commanding, reality in this world that exists in all living things. It lives within us and its focus is on creating meaningful human history. I call this reality God. And sometimes this reality requires the power of organization and the organization of power through human coalitions. The human coalition I choose to commit myself to is called the Unitarian Universalist Association.

With that in mind, I urge you to listen to that sustaining reality in your own life, follow its lead, and maybe, just maybe, find your way to a meeting with our Social Action Committee. Join them now. Work together. Serve the community. Give power to that transforming reality that abides within you and seeks to manifest itself through your service to help create the Beloved Community. See you at the Fellowship. Jim Covington