It's hard to believe it's been two months since you welcomed me into the King's Chapel family! As I continue to settle in and get to know you all, the same feeling prevails: a deep sense of joy and gratitude for the opportunity to be in your midst as one who serves. I've been thinking a lot about welcome lately-in light of last weekend's news and this weekend's scripture lessons. I've been thinking about the questions that animate our practice of faith: Who are we? How are we to be? And, for people of faith, aren't these questions bound up with who or what we understand God to be-and how we understand our relationship to the divine?

Hmm... it occurs to me that these questions might be slightly beyond the scope of this little corner of "Between Sundays." Well. Perhaps a story then. Upon moving into my office at the Parish House, I discovered that I was the inheritor of a rather large number of very old books ranging from dilapidated hymnals to theological treatises to innumerable lives of Unitarian luminaries. (Should you have any nagging questions about William Ellery Channing, please feel free to drop by: armed with no less than six different biographies of the Rev. Dr. Channing, in addition to several volumes of his own memoirs, we are sure to slake your curiosity!) In any event, during my re-shelving of these volumes so as to make room for my own modest library, I happened upon our own Annals of King's Chapel. Weary from hoisting the heavy Channing tomes to the top shelves, I sank into a chair with Volume III for a respite. And I was rather delighted to discover, in my random browsing of said volume, the story of a certain Father Benson and our own Rev. Mr. Foote, fourth minister of King's Chapel:

When Father Benson of the Cowley Fathers in Oxford came to Boston in November, 1870, to establish here the order of St. John the Evangelist, the Bishop of Massachusetts refused to allow him to preach in any church of his diocese because of his "popish tendencies." Rev. Mr. Foote, hearing of it, suggested that he preach in King's Chapel. But Father Benson replied, "I am a Trinitarian and would have to preach that doctrine." "That would not harm us," said Mr. Foote. And so it happened that the first sermon Father Benson preached in America was heard from our pulpit.

Well, my friends, as many of you know, I come to you as a Catholic Unitarian with a few "popish tendencies" of my own. Indeed, perhaps now's a good time for confession: I haven't completely figured out what it is to be a "Catholic Unitarian" yet. In the meantime, as I prepare to deliver my own first sermon from our venerable pulpit, I do so as one whose Catholicism is catholic and whose God is capacious. I do so not as one who would preach a particular doctrine, but as one who would abide with you in story. Who would walk with you-and grow with you-in faith.

With a heart warm and full,

David

Saturday, August 10

 1-2 PM|  UUUM Roxbury History Tour 10 Putnam Street. (Tours are every Saturday in August. CAC Chair Amanda Pickett is attending the August 10 1:00 PM Tour. To join her on this occasion or to register for a different Saturday in Aug, please register here:    

1-5 PM | UUUM Makanda Jazz Project

 

Wednesday, August 14

6 PM |  All Parish BBQ at the Parish House, hosted by the Adult Religious Education and Community Action Committees

Sunday, August 18

10-11 AM | Sandwich making for common cathedral

12:30 PM | Worship on the common with common cathedral

Saturday, September 14

1-5 PM | UUUM Makanda Jazz Project

Sunday, September 15

Homecoming

The UU Urban Ministry is one of King's Chapels three Community Action Partners. Learn more about the UU Urban Ministry at www.uuum.org.