Dear Unitarian Society of Germantown,
As we head into a weekend which culminates in our Ingathering service, I wanted to write to you about a few opportunities for living into our values Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Tomorrow marks the kick off of a mass mobilization effort by UUtheVote in the greater Philadelphia area. Friday evening at 6pm, the newly elected President of the UUA, Rev. Dr. SofĂa Betancourt will participate in a panel at First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, featuring some of our city’s moral leaders on the imperative to infuse faith in electoral strategy. On Saturday there will be a door knocking event in Delaware County. If you’ve never knocked doors before, don’t worry: you’ll get trained. And UUs are great at door knocking. It requires courage, warmth, and curiosity–three skills that align closely with our values. Register here for Friday and/or Saturday.
On Sunday we will ritualize the start of our congregational year with our Water Communion. During service, all will be invited to bring water to our altar: water that came from our travels this summer; water that came from our hoses or taps; water that came from the bathroom downstairs at USG (perfectly acceptable). We will bless the water and use it to dedicate our children and water our memorial garden. It will become the well we draw from all year.
This Ingathering, we will be adding an additional component to our Water Communion. At the request of UUs for Justice in the Middle East, congregations across the country will be acknowledging the ongoing lack of water in Gaza by creating a second altar, adorned with an empty vessel. We invite folks to place empty cups, decorated with symbols of Palestinian hope and solidarity, next to the empty vessel as they pass through the Water Communion line. We will be left with a beautifully full vessel of our communal water and a painfully stark reminder of water withheld. You are welcome to bring your own decorated cup to add to this altar but there will also be supplies at the back of the Sanctuary. A representative from the local organizing network Families for Ceasefire will be present to support our ritual and build our connection to this important activism in Philadelphia.
After worship, we will break bread at the community potluck and wander around the Grove to speak with leaders of our teams and committees about their work and how we can each get involved or contribute to the life of this congregation. It’s a great chance to get oriented to all the shared ministries that make this place a hive of activity working in concert to fulfill our mission of Building Beloved Community.
In loving faith,
Rev. Hannah