From The Shooting Star, May 18, 2008. Copyright 2008, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
June is a month of special celebrations in worship. June 1st celebrates our children and youth and their learnings in the religious education program this past year. We will also have a special collection for the Open Pantry in Lowell. June 8th will be our Membership Sunday, our welcoming of new members and our honoring long time members. At this service, which is during Gay Pride Weekend, we will be holding a second collection for Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), an organization that supports, as it names suggests, families and friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and helps them help their loved ones. The timing is important, for it will be the same Sunday as our annual meeting, and about one year since we voted to become a Welcoming Congregation for sexual minorities and their families. June 15th is our last "full service" Sunday before we begin our summer service schedule. We will be honoring our high school graduates with a bridging ceremony and we will hold our flower communion. For this service, the special collection will be for each other. I ask everyone to bring a flower to put in a communal vase. As we close this service, we will then each take a different flower with us, a symbol of the gifts we are to one another.
These "special collections", like all rituals, give expression to something larger than ourselves. They speak to how we as a whole can create, nurture, empower, and serve more together than we can on our own. It is not that we together can provide more funds or more food than singly. By taking time in worship to share some of what we have, whether it is time, treasure, or talent, and bringing them together as gift of the whole, we make concrete our values, our faith and our community. It is also a reminder that we receive what we give. The gifts of food remind us of the vulnerability we all share, for there may have been a time, there may be a time, the time may be now, where we in our individual lives have needed the feeding of others. And our gift to PLFAG acknowledges that the gift of unconditional love, and that families and friends need support in helping their loved ones face prejudice and fear. The flowers remind us of the unique gifts we share with one another. Thank you for all your gifts, your willingness to share of your time, talent, and treasure and for creating a community which celebrates generosity and gratitude.
In faith,
Ellen