Spring's Blooming

Happy spring, beloveds,

I do hope you and yours are managing to enjoy this spring’s blooming wherever you live. Even if it’s just short glances or brief stops along the sidewalk to admire a tender new shoot of some living miracle. As I write this the cherry trees are beginning to burst forth here in Seattle, and as I’ll preach this Sunday, my spirit never ceases to be lifted as the great blooming we call Spring invites us to bloom, too.

I’ve been reflecting on how this spring shines on our adapted life in the Carl Gipson Center. Evergreen is once again able to bloom with renewal and discovery and learning. Our emphasis and efforts over the past two years to renew our UUA covenant as a genuine “Welcoming Congregation” will continue to be a living, blooming learning event for all of us this spring. I witness all of us blooming with new social events, new intergenerational connections, new adult religious explorations, and more face-to-face visioning sessions for our future.

Our family faith development cohort continues to bloom, too, alongside those cherry trees. We have hope and faith coming down the horizon with child dedications, Bridgings, and our special Earth Day Flower Communion service shaped by the collaborative leadership of our youth. And as always, we’ll continue to honor our UU tradition of welcoming a diverse cadre of guest speakers who’ll lift their voices to many theological and religious points of view. This pluralism and freedom of the pulpit is a gift of strength and wonder in our tradition, and I hope you’ll choose to partake and enjoy.

Our New Member Ceremony honoring those who have joined Evergreen since last spring will be a joyful moment of expanding our circle in mid-May. I cherish this particular ritual because I see it as a living testament to our open-hearted welcome, our enduring power of belonging in UU traditions, together in covenant. And of course, our Easter service is rising on the horizon, too, when we turn our hearts toward the teachings of love Jesus and other prophets preached to their people.

To my eyes and heart, spring in our beloved Salish Sea inspires the soul with its stunningly tender beauty, its unstoppable vigorous strength, even during these very difficult times. Especially during these very difficult times.

As a congregation in covenant with Love, this spring and all through the year to come we will continue to walk the path of loving kindness with one another even though so many in our world choose instead to walk paths of hate and fear. May we continue to delight in the many spiritual paths unfolding among us, paths and practices and beliefs that call us to trust and love one another so we may grow as souls centered in Love, more fully.

With bloom, and hope, warmly,

Rev. Joe