On July 12, your troika shared our last worship service with the UUCM community. We broadcast from the sanctuary, along with the staff, and felt bittersweet at how the pandemic has affected our leave taking. But we felt your presence and all the ways you have shared yourselves with us these final weeks and these past two years.

And so we — Meg, Terri and Arif — want to say thank you!

Thank you for driving by on Sunday to say goodbye in person; it was wonderful to lay our eyes on the parts of your faces that weren’t covered with masks.

Thank you for the cards, with words we will treasure, for your good wishes and good memories.

Thanks for the trinkets, flowers, precious stones, and other gifts.  It felt like opening a Christmas stocking to bring them home and open them all!

Thank you for practicing good goodbyes and for leaning into a future with intention and willingness.

And most of all, thanks for tending the fires of Unitarian Universalism, so needed in the world right now.

As we close out this final message from your interim ministers, we want to share the charge we offered to the congregation on Sunday.

Terri: I will remember how deeply you care and want to help people. I pray you will remember these words from bell hooks: “there is no love that does not involve risk.” 

Arif: I will remember how devoted you are to your building. I pray you will remember that church is not the walls but the people in it, and who they are together.

Meg: I will remember your can-do spirit and willingness to jump right in. I pray you will remember that we are bound to one another in an interdependent web.

We will remember you and miss you. And we are so excited to see (from afar*) where you will go next.

With love and blessings,
Your Troika

*The troika continue to serve UUCM through the end of July. The following practice will go into affect August 1: It is the practice during ministerial transitions that outgoing ministers refrain from contact with the congregation for a period of two years. This includes meetings, email and social media. Please know this is not personal and is in the spirit of giving space for you to foster good connections with your new minister, Rev. Lisa Friedman.