Just about a year ago, Josh, the girls and I piled into our minivan with our small dog and left Illinois for Gainesville. I attended the congregational meeting via zoom from the front passenger seat, just south of Atlanta.

This Sunday, we’ll spend the first weekend of October fully engaged in our Gainesville lives. Me, at the congregational meeting and welcoming new members, celebrating communion and rallying for reproductive rights; Josh grading all the papers. Girls in the pool, most likely, long after summer has ended for their Chicago friends.

I am excited that the timing of this anniversary coincides with the beginning of a new worship theme for us at UCG: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” As a congregation, we’ll be reflecting on the neighborhoods in which we live and worship, and some of the challenges and tensions they face. We’ll also be inspired by Mr. Roger’s vision of neighborhood – the beloved community – and dream of what kinds of things, from the way we talk to each other to the way we think about money, can help shape our neighborhoods here and now.

The McHammonds, as we call ourselves, are in a very different place this year, with no plans for long trips up or down I-75, and we are well settled into our new home (though we have yet to take down the terrible wallpaper in the nook off the kitchen). Still, there is much that feels unfamiliar or chaotic. We’re in the red zone again, this time with an even more contagious variant, and our high school freshman had to evacuate three times this week due to bomb threats at school. I know many of you feel similarly unmoored and on edge, or just exhausted.

In the midst of it all, though, it helps to be grounded in a community. In a neighborhood. In a people and a practice. I am grateful that as Fiona is evacuating, she is walking to Lowes with friends from Youth United. I’m grateful to see other parents giving voice to their frustrations on Facebook. 

We had our first Only Connect small group last night, and in a group of four we had two alums of Boston University, two veterans, two who had spent a significant amount of time in the same small West Virginia town, two lovers of public transportation, two retired, two still working… Folks had met before, but it was fun to discover those points of connection, to learn about these people in our neighborhoods. 

 Some of you are lifelong Gainesville folks, some more recent transplants: wherever you came from, and whenever you got to UCG, I am so glad to share this life with you. As things change and as things stay the same, I am grateful to be sharing this life with you.

 Grace and Peace,

Bromleigh