Dear First Universalist Friends,

In our denomination, the final step a would-be UU minister must take to be granted the right to ordination is passing an oral exam. The exam is given by a group of ministers and religious professionals called the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, aka the MFC. It lasts exactly an hour, is scheduled many months in advance, and in the case of most ministers it takes at least 4 years (or, for some of us, 6 years…) to prepare for it. 

If you pass, great! Onward to ordination! If you don’t pass, it’s back to the drawing board. In other words, the MFC Exam is as anxiety-provoking as it sounds. 

Though, you’ll be pleased to know that your trusty minister here received the highest grade on the exam (there were no math questions!), I was so ‘rev’-ed up on adrenaline during my MFC appointment that I remember very little about the experience. In fact, I only remember one question a member of the MFC posed to me. That question?

“How do you celebrate Easter in a Unitarian Universalist context?”

Yes, the holy holiday we celebrate this Sunday in “our UU context” is so complex, so confounding, so wide-open and constricting at once, that ministerial candidates are interrogated about it during their make-or-break fellowship exam. 

Of course, I don’t remember at all how I replied to that question at the time. What I can tell you, though, is that I’ve never been one to shy away from Easter. In fact, I love Easter; it is my favorite holy day of the year. I love it not in-spite of, but because of its complexity. Easter is wild! Mysteriously joyful! A day that celebrates the emergence of new life - in all of its strangeness, shock, and joy - after a period of suffering, death, and grief. 

There are many takes in ministerial circles right now about how we are living in “a good Friday world.” And yes, we are: suffering abounds, grief abounds, uncertainty abounds. How can we make sense of Easter from any context right now?

Well, from my point of view, we celebrate it anyway. We call in the possibility of joy, which is a joyful practice in and of itself. 

What about you, though? How will you celebrate this day of new life, and shocking, wild, and mysterious joy in your context this Sunday? I hope you’ll celebrate it with us.

Yours in a Good Friday world just waiting to be shocked by joy – – Ah! There’s some over there!

Rev. Hillary 

You are invited to the

on Sunday, June 5, 2022 at 4:00 pm

Are you a Board Geek in hiding? We bet some of you are! Think of it this way: many new UU's have said to themselves upon discovering the UU faith, "I was a UU all along, I just didn't know it!" Maybe you're a future Board Member and just don't yet know it!

Our First U Board of Trustees will have one open At Large seat for the upcoming church year which begins on July 1. We hope to fill that seat at our annual meeting in June. If you are interested or would like to know more, please contact Joanna Landsman at jslandsman@gmail.com.

THANK YOU to all who donated to the Easter Can Hunt! On Sunday morning, we'll hide the items like we typically would Easter eggs. After church, any children who are present can hunt for the cans/other items, and then we'll donate all of it to the Yarmouth Food Pantry. Children who participate will also receive a small goodie bag to take home, as well.

Want to help with the Easter cheer? Pots of spring flowers, such as daffodils, lilies, tulips, or pansies, would be gratefully accepted to adorn the sanctuary. Thank you!

The church elevator is temporarily out of service. The Buildings & Grounds Committee are working with an elevator tech to address the problem. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that if this poses a barrier for you that you'll join the service on Zoom.

Have you wondered about the historical context behind the horrors we are all watching unfold in Ukraine? We have an Eastern European historian in our midst! Cathy McKenna will give a brief lecture about the historical origins of the latest crisis in Ukraine Wednesday April 27 at 7:00. Bring your questions!

Cathy has studied eastern Europe for the last 30 years. She began as a Russian literature major at Princeton, spent much of the middle 1990s in Russia and then shifted her focus to the history of eastern Europe. For the next ten years she studied eastern Europe at Georgetown University while spending summers in Zagreb, Cracow and Warsaw. She received her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History 2012, having written a dissertation on the political culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After six years of lecturing at Georgetown and other area schools, she left DC to move to Maine. She is currently finishing up her manuscript Liberty's Double Edged Sword: The Rise and Fall of the Polish Republic and will be teaching a course on the history of Ukraine at MECA this fall.

Things are happening fast and furiously in Augusta. If you were getting alerts from MUUSAN, you could have advocated for several bills this week, including the Maine Generation Authority bill. Please sign up for these alerts!  They will never share your email address with anyone else. You’ll receive on average 2 emails a month that will keep you in the loop about the important statewide advocacy and public policy actions that Maine UUs can take.

Please share a giant congratulations to Minka Holtrop, one of our senior youth group members. We just learned that her drawing, Kingdom Animalia, was selected as a National Gold Medal recipient in the National Scholastics Art and Writing competition! Additionally, she was selected for the American Visions Medal ("Best in Show" from Maine)!

While the hardware will arrive later (along with the New York City ceremony), the congratulations can start now. To read more about Minka’s drawing, here is her artist statement. Enjoy finding all of the little animals.

Nearly two dozen New Mainer families have arrived in Yarmouth from Angola, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yarmouth Community Services (YCS), Yarmouth Cares About Neighbors (YCAN), and the Yarmouth public schools are working together to coordinate efforts to support our new neighbors. Read more in a letter from Superintendent Andrew R. Dolloff and learn about how you can help.

Annie Cook and Diana Hansen have an apartment available for rent in the area. It's a loft style apartment, small but beautiful. Everything is included, heat/ac via a heat pump, and parking for one car. $ 1,200/month. For more information, please contact Annie at annmarioncook@gmail.com.

On Wednesdays from 12:00 - 1:00 pm Rev. Hillary will be holding an outside drop-in space at our church picnic tables. All are welcome to come by and check-in. (Weather permitting.) Throughout the week, Rev. Hillary will be holding office hours for individual conversations. These conversations can be on Zoom, over the phone, or in-person. Please reach out to Rev. Hillary directly to schedule a conversation, firstuminister@gmail.com. Note that Rev. Hillary is not available to meet on Saturdays and Mondays.