Welcome Back. As we come together this week, we are sobered by the suffering of so many from Harvey’s hurricane waters and by new threats to immigrant Americans. We bring to these challenges our resilience, strong values, and ever growing and learning faith community. Our minister, Erin, is back with us after her months of sabbatical, and she is full of energy and ideas. Many of our members participated in an exuberant, well-organized and ardent Peace Rally on the Boston Common in August.

Please welcome the four new Board members you elected at our June Annual Meeting: Brooke Foucault Welles, Chris Krebs, Amalia Basch and Leah Lakomski. Leah and Amalia are our new Youth members. Our Board will hold a fall retreat in two weeks, where we will be creating a new Board Covenant to guide how we work together and setting priorities for our year’s work. We will share our new covenant and priorities with you in the next months, and will keep you abreast of our work for FUUSN. We look forward to hearing from you about your visions for FUUSN and welcome you to attend our open Board meetings.

This meditation, Walking toward Morning, by Victoria Safford conveys the courage, faith, and connections with each other that can bring us into these weeks of opportunity:

“Every morning we go out blinking into the glare of our freedom, into the wilderness of our work and the world, making maps as we go, looking for signs that we’re on the right path. And on some good days we walk right out of our oppressions, those things that press us down from the outside or (as often) from the inside: we shake off the shackles of fear, prejudice, timidity, closed-mindedness, selfishness, self righteousness and claim our freedom outright, terrifying as it is—our freedom to be human and humane.”

With music, our Sunday rituals, and the commitments we have made to each other, let’s celebrate our return.         Cathy Morocco, Board of Trustees