Dear TJMC-UU Community,
The past months have seen tragedy after tragedy wearing at our everyday existence…Cville August 12, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico and now Las Vegas. It would be easy to try to minimize, to compartmentalize and to just plain give up hope. It seems overwhelming and if you were doing it alone it would be. But you are not alone. You are part of the strength of the TJMC-UU community.
Please don’t try to do this alone; reach out to each other and, if needed, reach out to your church’s ministry team. We encourage you to call and check on someone, send a text and just say that you are thinking of them, invite someone over for a meal or meet them for coffee. If you are having a hard time connecting with someone at church consider a Covenant Group, AFD class, volunteer, or stop by the Potluck on Oct. 22nd.
We are all in this together and our strength comes for our shared purpose, theology, and ministry to each other and then to the wider world. Share your Unitarian Universalist message with someone new this week. Let them know about the strength you gain from our community and then INVITE them in!
We all need each other right now and there is no better time to look outwards to envision Beloved Community into existence. It will take all of us and now is the moment, reach in and then reach out. We need each other now more than ever.
YoUUs in service,
Christina Rivera
Director of Administration & Finance
P.S. If you and/or your family need resources to process recent events, here are some helpful links. These resources are curated by religious educators from LREDA (Liberal Religious Educators Association), the professional organization of which Leia and Chris are members; as well as the UUA Faith Development Office:
http://www.uua.org/families/disaster/responding-to-trauma
http://www.massgeneral.org/about/newsarticle.aspx?id=2957
http://www.massgeneral.org/about/newsarticle.aspx?id=2957
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TJMC Covenant Statement
In order to create the beloved community we all desire for ourselves, we, the Congregation of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist covenant to:
Communicate with compassion and respect, especially when we disagree
Celebrate diversity and nurture our inclusivity,
Promote social justice within our congregation and the larger community,
Generously support the ministries of the church with time, money and enthusiasm, and
Lovingly call each other back into covenant when we have fallen short.