Dear Ones:
Let’s talk about resilience for a moment. It is synchronous that our congregation is spending our Sundays contemplating resilience, our summer worship theme, as our youth spent their recent Work Tour experiencing it. Travel delays, forgotten items, stolen backpacks, upset tummies, early mornings, boisterous nights, manual labor under an unrelenting sun, harsh fluorescent lights disrupting our circadian rhythms, flooding bathrooms, lightning storms, missed plans. And waiting. So much waiting.
The orchestration of transporting 32 youth and 11 chaperones with a combined 5-6 destinations each day to multiple worksites, shower facilities, and outings, demanded a nightly collaboration among the chaperones. We shuttled the youth in shifts with our duo of vans, navigating rush hour traffic, and seeking out parking garages with enough overhead clearance to stow them. Our accommodations included three narrow parking spaces in an alley, and many Austin Powers references were revived as we maneuvered 37-point turns.
After our fourth day of volunteering, I considered cancelling our evening visit to the National Harbor in Maryland to watch an outdoor movie and ride the Capital Wheel, concerned that an additional outing for fun may just induce weariness. But it turned out to be a beautiful evening. Once we’d arrived and settled into a “home base” at the outdoor movie, the youth were free to ride the ferris wheel, browse the shops, or just relax and enjoy the waterfront. It felt safe and relaxed, and there was even a small sandy beach to wiggle bare toes and turn cartwheels (well, maybe that was just me.) It was a welcome change of scenery after spending much of our downtime in a church basement. On the drive home, my vanful sang a few “car”aoke Nelly songs in preparation for the (later rain-delayed) baseball game and Nelly concert we planned to attend the next day. I must say – belting out Nelly and Kelly Rowland’s “Dilemma” with my fellow chaperones was a real treat. 🙂
Our car concert was one of many magical memories we shared during Work Tour: singing along to Tracy Chapman, watching the youth jump and scream at the Pride festival, visiting the monuments at night, enjoying ice cream socials and Georgetown cupcakes. Friendships deepened. Inside jokes emerged. The youth shared stories each night about the volunteer site they’d visited, they took care of one another, they hugged each other goodnight. It was those beautiful moments that made the hard ones a little easier to withstand.
When I googled the definition of resilience, my search result was “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” But resilience is best preserved when cushioned with the softness of community, of love, of memories made with a community that loves you.
We have spent much of the past year+ working as a community to strengthen our resilience, and in doing so have allocated a lot of time to reviewing opportunities for growth and revision. And there is a tremendous value in reflecting on our past difficulties and discerning ways we can practice more resiliency in our responses to future challenges. We have been doing the hard, hard work of facing where disconnects occurred, and defining the path forward to fix them, and this exercise in self-examination is making us a stronger community.
Yet, what makes our community worth fixing is the magic. The singalongs and ice cream socials, the outings and protests and service projects and celebrations and small groups and opportunities to connect through our shared values, the lessons and the learning and the laughter. The inspiration to do good and be good, to practice theology with our sleeves rolled up.
UCG celebrates its 60th year this year, and as we (I) shift my focus to our upcoming festivities, I invite you to consider all the ways that we get it right. Reflect on your favorite sermon, a skill you’ve learned, a friend you’ve made, a gift you’ve received since joining this community, whether that was 60 years or 60 days ago. Consider *why* resilience matters, consider the goodness it aims to protect. On Work Tour, celebrating the goodness replenished our spirits for the challenges that interspersed. I hope we can spend the coming months celebrating all the goodness that UCG has come to be, and replenish our collective spirit for the work ahead.
We are so fortunate to be a part of this congregation that strives, even imperfectly, to offer one another a community of care that nurtures our resilience.
To my amazing Work Tour chaperones: Jeremy Archer, Anita Rajasekhar, Catherine Cake, RD Bonnaghan, Christine Engels, Yo’Quarius Tucker, Malika Green, Brandon Telg, Helda Montero and Joe Hartley. I am more resilient precisely because I have your love, patience, support, and collaboration. Thank you for being my community of care on the Work Tour. I love you.
– Tami