During an interim ministry there are specific tasks that the interim minister and the congregation are supposed to focus on in order to prepare for the success of future ministries. One of these tasks is strengthening the connection between the congregation and the larger Unitarian Universalist Association. In recent months we have been doing this by bringing outstanding denominational leaders such as UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray and the Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, President of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, to lead worship for us. They have led inspiring services on what Unitarian Universalist communities are doing to confront humanity’s profound moral, political, and spiritual crisis. As the Rev. Frederick-Gray told us “this is no time for a casual faith.” It is a time to nurture “a fierce sense of purpose that recognizes how much is on the line.”

In the next months we will be nurturing this sense of purpose and strengthening our connection between First Church and the Unitarian Universalist Association through a series of services on the association’s seven principles. The series will conclude with a service on June 16th focusing on the proposed eighth principle. In current form the proposed principle reads: “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

Periods of interim ministry are also times for experimentation. In the next months we will be experimenting with worship by adding, for eight weeks, a 9:00 a.m. contemplative service. The 9:00 a.m. service will feature the same sermon. It will include more space for musical and silent meditation and a little less congregational singing. Nursery care but not religious education will be provided. I am excited about the experiment. Sunday morning attendance has been strong in recent months and adding a second service with a different format will allow us both room to grow and the opportunity imagine the ways that worship can be different.

The theme of my column this month is change. One of the challenges during periods of change is remaining grounded in a sense of self, even as that sense of self shifts. In that light, I offer this selection from Joy Harjo’s “Remember:”

Remember the wind.
Remember her voice.
She knows the origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people are you.
Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

love,

Colin

as prepared February 12, 2019 for the Harris County Commissioners Court

Commissioners, public servants, and members of the public, I bring you greetings from the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Houston. Unitarian Universalism is a religious tradition that celebrates the possibility of goodness within each human heart, the transformative power of love, and the clarifying force of reason. We believe that we need not think alike to love alike. Our communities include atheists and believers in the divine. Our religious communion contains some of the oldest congregations in the United States. The First Parish of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the congregation founded by the Pilgrims, in 1606, and the First Church in Boston are both members. Here in Houston, First Unitarian Universalist is proud to have been the first congregation to desegregate. We continue to be a religious home for all wish to join us: welcoming the GLBT community, declaring that love has no borders, proclaiming that black lives matter, toiling to address climate change, and struggling for democracy.

I invite you into the spirit of prayer.

Close your eyes,
open your ears,
open your minds,
open your hearts.

Oh, spirit of love,
and of justice,
that sometimes lies
latent,
and sometimes stirs,
within the human heart,
be with us this morning,
and all the days of our lives.

Help the elected leaders of Harris County,
And all of the political leaders of this country,
and each of us,
remember that we are called to serve the least of these:
refugees fleeing violence,
migrant children,
undocumented immigrants,
homeless, gay, lesbian, and transgender youth,
drug addicts,
prostitutes,
and all those who have no voice in the courts of power.

Help us to remember
that we live in the richest country in the history of the world,
that love calls us to be generous,
that tyranny thrives on inequality,
and that democracy requires equality.

Stir in our hearts,
stir our imaginations,
and open within us the power
to make the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr.
called beloved community
a reality.

That we may do so
within this generation
I say Amen.

This month our congregation launches our annual stewardship campaign, “Weaving a Tapestry of Love and Action.” The theme is drawn from the words we use to bless the offering each week. This theme reminds us that justice is at the core of who we are as Unitarian Universalists: As Cornel West once observed, “justice is what love looks like in public.”

Your financial gifts to our congregation are essential to sustain it and position First Church to share our values and extend our collective impact in the community. Now is a critical time to support both the congregation and Unitarian Universalism. Because the congregation is in the midst of multiple transitions in ministry and staff, it is even more important to ensure that the congregation is on firm financial footing. With your support, First Church will be better prepared to begin the next phase of our long history of innovative ministry to the community.

It is all too clear we are at a critical turning point in human history. Climate change; the global resurgence of totalitarian, anti-democratic, political regimes; seemingly intractable structures of white supremacy; unbridled capitalism; and the enduring dominance of militarism have all combined to make us question even the possibility of continued human existence. These great crises are not primarily material. They are rooted in an underlying moral and spiritual crisis: How do humans make meaning in an ever-changing global pluralistic society where the narratives that shape individual identity and communities are constantly contested? This moral and spiritual crisis can only be addressed by building beloved communities that, locally and globally, change lives, transform culture, and craft transnational networks devoted to human liberation. Unitarian Universalism’s foundational commitment to the transformative power of love and theological openness mean that First Church has the potential to be one of these beloved communities. Your contributions supply the essential fabric from which the congregation can truly weave a tapestry of love and action.

To emphasize the mutual connections of our Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), we are pleased to welcome my friend and dear colleague, UUA President the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray to our pulpit on February 10th. Her sermon will focus on how Unitarian Universalism can realize its potential to build beloved community. Throughout the month the Rev. Dr. Dan King and I will also be leading services on stewardship which will emphasize our collective opportunities for tangible support for this community. Our stewardship team has recruited volunteer interviewers (“visiting stewards”) who will offer to talk with you about your personal connection to First Church and the work our congregation does in the world. The conversations are designed to be an opportunity to for deeper spiritual reflection, whether one-on-one or in a small group. I hope that you will choose to take advantage of their offer to listen to you.

This month is also Black History Month. Each of our services will feature music from Africa and the African diaspora. My sermon on the 24th will celebrate the life and work of the Reverend Ethelred Brown, the founder of the Unitarian Church of Harlem and a foundational figure in the tradition of black humanism. Portions of this sermon will be incorporated into a lecture I have been invited to prepare, “The Social Question: Unitarian Social Ethics in the Progressive Era.” I will be delivering in San Francisco on May 18th. I hope to see you on the 24th and throughout the month!

A brief personal note before I close, at the end of last month I was recently named an African American Religious Studies Forum Affiliate of Rice University’s for Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning.

The appointment comes with an invitation to present two public lectures at Rice in the 2019-2020 academic year. They will be an opportunity to emphasize the longstanding connections between First Church and Rice.

And finally, a poem:

“Each Day” by lifelong Unitarian Universalist, Rev. Kristen Harper, longtime minister of the Unitarian Church of Barnstable, Massachusetts:

Each day provides us with an opportunity to love again,
To hurt again, to embrace joy,
To experience unease,
To discover the tragic.
Each day provides us with the opportunity to live.

This day is no different, this hour no more unique than the last,
Except… Maybe today, maybe now,
Among friends and fellow journeyers,
Maybe for the first time, maybe silently,
We can share ourselves.

love,

Colin

The two interviews that I did for WGVU‘s radio show Common Threads are now available online. You can listen to the January 20, 2019 interview here and the January 27, 2019 interview here.

The theme for worship in January is transformation. This is a particularly apt theme for a period of interim ministry. The departure of one senior minister and the arrival of another is always a significant time of transformation in congregational life. The first month of the year is also a time when people naturally think about the past and imagine the future.

Thinking about the past and imagining the future are central tasks of the interim ministry. They are transformative work and in our worship services throughout the month we’ll be exploring how the work of transforming our religious community can be work that transforms us as individuals. The Rev. Dr. Joanne Braxton will be leading a service on January 6th in this vein on the 8th Principle Project, an effort to add an explicit commitment to anti-racism to the principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. My own services for the month will challenge us to examine how by changing ourselves we can be each become agents for transformation of the larger whole.

January marks a big month for transformation in the life of First Church. On January 6th we will begin live-streaming the sermons from Museum District to Tapestry. We had a successful launch of live-streaming to Thoreau on December 16th when Mary Katherine Morn was in the pulpit. I suspect that all listening to the same sermon on Sunday morning will help make First Church feel more like one church in three locations. I am excited about it and I hope that you are as well!

On a personal note, I will be on vacation in Japan from December 25th to January 4th. The Rev. Dr. Dan King will be stepping into the role of head of staff in my absence. I am looking forward to an exciting trip and returning with full of new inspiration. Because of my travel destination and the time of year I think it is appropriate to end with two winter poems from the Japanese tradition:

Starting, then stopping,
the hail moves through my garden
all at a slant;
shining banks of cloud
darken in the sky above. ~ Kyogoku Tamekane

As a rule, I hate
crows–but, ah, not on such a
snowy morning! ~ Matsuo Basho

love,

Colin

I figured that since it is January it would be interesting to check which of my blog posts over the last few years have been the most well read. I looked at my analytics and compiled two lists: the most read blog posts of all time and the most read blog posts of 2018.

Most Read Blog Posts of All Time

1. American Populism and Unitarian Universalism: the 2019 Spring Minns Lectures
2. Starting as the Senior Interim Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church, Greater Houston, Texas
3. “Letter to Demetrias” and “On the Possibility of Not Sinning,” Pelagius
4. Sermon: Collective Memory, a Sermon in Response to the Shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation
5. Sermon: The River May Not Be Turned Aside
6. Sermon: Abolition Democracy
7. A Tribute to the Rev. Kay Jorgensen
8. President Trump’s Klan-like Rhetoric
9. Some Thoughts on Ministerial Tenure
10. Sermon: Finding Each Other on the Road to Emmaus

Most Read Blog Posts of 2018

1. American Populism and Unitarian Universalism: the 2019 Spring Minns Lectures
2. Starting as the Senior Interim Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church, Greater Houston, Texas
3. Sermon: Collective Memory, a Sermon in Response to the Shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation
4. “Letter to Demetrias” and “On the Possibility of Not Sinning,” Pelagius
5. A Tribute to the Rev. Kay Jorgensen
6. Some Thoughts on Ministerial Tenure
7. Sermon: The River May Not Be Turned Aside
8. Acknowledgements
9. Sermon: The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart
10. First Unitarian Universalist Houston is now YouTube!

Two 30-minute interviews with me will run on WGVU in Grand Rapids, MI as part of their show “Common Threads.” The first will run on Sunday, January 20, 2019 and the second will run on Sunday, January 27, 2019. The show has a weekly audience of between 8,000 and 10,000. The interviews will be available online on the day following their broadcast debuts.

Dear Members and Friends of First Houston:

December is a busy time. Thanksgiving is quickly followed by the winter holidays. Growing up in an inter-religious household we celebrated in what always felt like rapid succession Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years. In my home we still do. Alongside all of the work of the season my month will be filled with lights, snatches of Hebrew, Christmas music, latkes–fried in olive oil and served with sour cream and apple sauce, and, sometimes, chopped red onion, smoked salmon, and capers–and family time. 

Despite the celebrations of the holidays, I know from both personal and professional experience that the season can be difficult for many people. The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston offers a place for you, however you experience the holidays. This year’s holiday services include space for the celebratory and the somber alike. We have Music Sunday on December 9th and on December 16th we will have a special guest in the pulpit, the Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, President and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. In addition, we will be holding a special solstice service on December 21 at 6:00 p.m., a Christmas pageant on the morning of December 23rd, and a Christmas Eve service of Lessons and Carols at 7:00 p.m. on the 24th. 

In the spirit of the season, I close with two poems, one from each of my family’s traditions. The first is “Season of Skinny Candles” by Marge Piercy. The second is T. S. Eliot’s “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees.”

Season of Skinny Candles by Marge Piercy.

A row of tall skinny candles burns
quickly into the night
air, the shames raised
over the rest
for its hard work.

Darkness rushes in
after the sun sinks
like a bright plug pulled.
Our eyes drown in night
thick as ink pudding.

When even the moon
starves to a sliver
of quicksilver
the little candles poke
holes in the blackness.

A time to eat fat
and oil, a time to gamble
for pennies and gambol

“The Cultivation of Christmas Trees” by T. S. Eliot.

There are several attitudes towards Christmas, 
Some of which we may disregard: 
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial, 
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight), 
And the childish – which is not that of the child 
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel 
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree 
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree: 
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder 
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext; 
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement 
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree, 
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions 
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell), 
The expectation of the goose or turkey 
And the expected awe on its appearance,

So that the reverence and the gaiety 
May not be forgotten in later experience, 
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium, 
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure, 
Or in the piety of the convert 
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit 
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children 
(And here I remember also with gratitude 
St.Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas 
(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last) 
The accumulated memories of annual emotion 
May be concentrated into a great joy 
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion 
When fear came upon every soul: 
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end 
And the first coming of the second coming.

love,

Colin

Dear Members and Friends of First Houston:

November is a big month for First Church. It will begin with the move of the Thoreau campus to Richmond. The campus’s new building is located on a lovely five-acre plot immediately across the street from a new housing development. It represents a real opportunity for the congregation to grow a voice for Unitarian Universalism in Fort Bend County.

The project has taken more than a year to complete. It wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of the Rev. Dr. Dan King, Jan Elias, and Betty Johnson. Together they served as the staff and volunteer project managers. They have modeled shared ministry: staff and volunteers collaborating in service of a common vision.

The move comes at the same time that we have launched a new website and started a YouTube channel. If you haven’t seen the site yet go to http://firstuu.org/ and check it out! You’ll find a link to our YouTube channel once you get there. We’re still tweaking the website. If you find something that needs to be fixed or you think should be changed please email website@firstuu.org with you comments. The website is another great example of shared ministry. Special thanks go to Betty Johnson, Ben Ochoa, and Nikki Steele for bringing the project to fruition.

My own work over the last month has largely focused on goal setting for this year of transitional ministry with the Board and the staff. I have participated in retreats with each group. The goals the Board and I set together are: work on governance; build trust within the congregation; and improve staff morale, structure, and supervision. Bob Miller has more extensive reflections on these goals in his President’s letter.

I share them because increasing communication and transparency are important parts of building trust throughout the congregation. Good communication is also essential for effective work together. Over the next few months we are hoping that the new website, as well as new social media initiatives on Twitter and Instagram, will help us to improve communication across campuses.

The biggest news on the communication front is that starting in January we will be live-streaming the sermons from Museum District to Tapestry and Thoreau. I am pretty excited about this shift. I am hoping it will allow First Church to feel like one church with three campuses rather than three separate worshipping communities as I am afraid it sometimes feels.

Writing this column has been a reminder that much of the work of an interim is internally focused on the life of the congregation. It is the work that is necessary to lay the groundwork for the ministry you will do in the future, ministry that is desperately needed to help heal our world. I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve you as you both live in this moment and prepare for what will come next.

As always, I close with a fragment of poetry, this one from Wislawa Szymborska’s “No Title Required”:

It turns out that I am, and am looking.
Above me a white butterfly flits about in the air,
his wings belonging only to him,
and through my hands, a shadow flies,
none other, no one else’s, than his own.

Facing such a view always leaves me uncertain
that the important
is more important than the unimportant.

love,

Colin

Dear Members of the First Houston Community:

I am excited to be joining you this month for our time of interim ministry! My first day in the office will be August 7th. August 12th will be my first Sunday in the pulpit. I will be preaching at the Museum District. I will be preaching there again on August 19th and at least once at each of the campuses during the autumn. The services for the month of August will help us set the tenor of our work together. They are designed to focus our attention on the religious tasks before us as First Houston moves through a period of unanticipated transition during a time of profound cultural, ecological, moral, and political crisis.

I promise it won’t be dispiriting! My work while I am with you will be to help guide you through the transition while remaining honest about and engaged with the broader crises we face as a human species in this moment of history. One of the most important religious practices we can cultivate is the ability to find beauty and joy while we confront the disappointments and horrors of the world. As Unitarian Universalist theologian Rebecca Parker writes, “The greatest challenge in our lives is the challenge presented to us by the beauty of life, by what beauty asks of us, and by what we must do to keep faith with the beauty that has nourished our lives.” Some Sunday you might find me wearing a clown nose or engaging in an act of lyrical foolishness just as a reminder that joy should be constantly invoked.

Over the next few months my columns will share information and stories about the interim process. But, before I close with a piece of poetry, I would like to just tell you how excited about I am accompanying your congregation through its period of transition. I hope it is a time of growth and deepening for all of us.

It is a time, however, which will necessarily come to an end, for that is the nature of all things and, more particularly, the nature of interim ministry. I will be with you as you move through your period of transition. And then we will go our separate ways. And so it seems appropriate to conclude this month’s column with a fragment from T. S. Eliot’s “East Coker:”

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

I pray that this time of transition is a time of blessing for all of us. See you soon!

love,

Colin

PS Let me share with you a bit of logistical information. My office hours will be Tuesday through Thursdays, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with other times available by appointment. Mondays will be my study day and Fridays will be reserved for sermon writing. Saturdays will be my day off. I will be available to the church two evenings a week, most likely Tuesdays and Wednesdays.