Mid-Week Message 5/3/22

“We are building a new way.” from Singing the Journey, words and music by Martha Sandefer

Friends,

It was 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit California’s central coast, killing 67 people and causing extensive damage in and around the San Francisco Bay area. It was 1997 when I arrived in the bay area to begin my seminary studies at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley. Buildings, roads, and bridges were still being rebuilt. Retrofit was the buzzword of the time as existing buildings and structures were being retrofitted with new engineering and new materials. The idea was to create structures that were both strong and flexible, structures that had a certain amount of give and could bend and sway when the ground began to shake and roll. In other words, resilience was being built into everything from office buildings to apartment buildings, bridges to tunnels, homes to schools to municipal buildings.

Words that come to mind when thinking of resilience are elastic, pliable, and adaptable. The opposite of resilient is rigid or brittle. Something that is strong and flexible is more likely to survive an earthquake than something that is strong and rigid.

I daresay we have all learned something about resilience lately, learned something about what it is to live on shaky ground. Many of our old ways of being have tumbled while some others continue as before, but not exactly the same as before. We truly are building a new way. The businesses and institutions that have survived have done so by adapting and being flexible to meet the challenges of the time.

One thing I have found to be true is that a church is more than its buildings. The buildings could fall tomorrow and the church itself would still exist. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t care about the buildings that have been entrusted to our care. They are sacred places that exist to nurture and shelter the community that inhabits them. And, the community itself is a source of resilience. The community itself has stretched beyond the confines of the buildings and has adapted itself in ways none of us could have imagined three years ago.

We are building a new way. It was in 2005 that the song “Building a New Way” was published in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal supplement, Singing the Journey. The song is a favorite among most congregations. It’s like we’ve been preparing ourselves to build something new for a long time now, retrofitting ourselves, our lives, and our congregations for times such as these.

San Francisco today is still recognizable as the San Francisco it was before the 1989 earthquake, and it is much, much different than it was then. So it is with the church.

We are building a new way that is strong and flexible, resilient enough to adapt and change our ways to meet the challenges of the day. It is our only choice, our only hope. While there is a strong urge to return to normal, there is also an opportunity to create a new normal that is even stronger and more resilient than what existed before.

If you are reading this, you are part of the rebuilding crew. Please read through all of today’s announcements and consider how it is you might become involved in building a new way as we retrofit for a shifting world. I am particularly looking for people with an interest in worship. I am offering an introductory workshop next Saturday, May 14, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. You can come in person or join by Zoom. It will be fun, interactive, and informative. Sign up by emailing me at leadminister@firstuunash.org.

Yours in shared ministry,