From UUCGV Board President, Elizabeth High

     I have been thinking lately about the meaning of our congregation as an entity that changes over time and is nourished by the love, work, generosity, and creativity of those who are no longer with us. Two recent conversations within Leadership brought this to my mind. At our Leadership Retreat in September, Bill Conrod asked for a tally of how we first found out about the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Grand Valley. Two congregants who have since passed away were named as the connecting points to our congregation for a few people in Leadership. At our October Board meeting we started the meeting with the question “When did you first feel like you belonged at UUCGV?”

     Two other congregants who have since died were mentioned as integral to that first moment of belonging for a couple of Board members. These two conversations brought to my mind an image of our congregation as an evolving tapestry, with threads continuing in the tapestry from those who are no longer with us. Other threads in the tapestry come from children who grow up in the congregation and bring that experience into their adult lives. Ideally, this tapestry also enriches our world and touches the lives of those outside of our congregation.

     Monte and I first joined the tapestry of UUCGV almost 15 years ago. The time has seemed to fly by in a flash. The fact that children who were waist high have now graduated high school is a reminder to me of how much time has truly passed. In my mind, two of our biggest accomplishments in the past 15 years have been finding a settled minister whom we love and works together with us skillfully; and finding a home, a building that we own, that is situated in an ideal location for community outreach.

     In addition to these concrete “accomplishments,” there also have been countless precious moments that have touched each of us in different ways. Each one of us may have a story about a sermon or musical performance that touched us, a discussion in adult RE that changed our perspective, a transcendent moment as participating with other UUs in serving a meal at the soup kitchen or participating with other UUs in a march or rally.
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     What kind of love, work, generosity, and creativity does each of us wish to put forward to shape the tapestry of our congregation into the future? What do we want our congregation to look like 15 years from now when the children in our congregation will be adults? What do we hope to have given these children by the time they are grown? How can our tapestry more fully enrich the world and touch the lives of those outside of our congregation? What impact do we want our congregation to have made in the Grand Valley community by the time 15 years have passed?
 
- Elizabeth High