Dear All Souls –

I began our staff meeting this week by centering us on a poem published in UU World this Spring. Here is a portion of the poem written by Mathew P. Taylor*:

I can feel the change coming
Like growing pains
I feel the change in my bones
Pulling me
Stretching me
Forming me
Into the true I am
Can you feel it?

We are, Dear Ones, in a state of change as we prepare to welcome you back to in person and hybrid services in August. The staff is busy readying Religious Education programming, music selections for worship, galvanizing teams to help protect voting and reproductive rights, and making sure the physical and online spaces in which we gather are welcoming and safe. We are preparing for church unclouded by a pandemic that has forced us to re-form in a different way.

As we welcome Rev. Bill as our Transition Minister for this third year, the central focus of the staff will be to work well and efficiently in support of regathering the Congregation, but we will do so by easing into what will be a new normal. Rev. Bill and I are encouraging staff to maintain a healthy balance between their work and personal lives and not to sacrifice the good for the perfect. We will resist the urge to try to recreate the 2019 All Souls, and we evolve with the congregation into the true I am post-pandemic. Our aim is to stretch and form with you as we prepare to welcome a called ministry with open minds and healthy hearts. This will require that we pace ourselves and move with discernment – together.

The entire staff is eagerly awaiting the hugs, bows and virtual hellos. See you soon All Souls!

Traci Hughes-Trotter, Executive Director

*Mathew is a beloved ancestor of the UU community. They were a BIPOC gender Queer UU seminarian interning at the Rockville church when they died last year. We are grateful for their lasting words and their abundant spirit that continues to provide for us all.