Kate Sloan, UUCCH Board Member

Six years ago, this coming August, I was vacationing up on Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. I was sitting on the porch, listening to the waves splashing up against the sea wall, when I got a phone call from then Board President Ed Fox. Now, a week or so before, I had been given the job of Worship Service Director for the next Church year, our “Year of Discernment” – no minister, just me preaching and directing a cohort of game & brilliant church members to do the same. So, I had been spending much of that vacation dreaming up sermons & how I would try to help the church through its discernment period.  Uh-huh. Ed was on the phone, explaining how they’d just discovered that the sanctuary roof was only tenuously still connected to the sanctuary.  

Looks like the Year of Discernment was going to be the year all hell broke loose.  It wasn’t just the roof, it was the wildlife & mold in Hillside, it was the pipes for the fire system, it was the accident that destroyed our decades-old beloved pottery chalice, it was the adapting of Fellowship Hall to accommodate services and the incessant, incessant moving of the chairs.  It was a lot.  But through it all, this congregation was gracious & resilient.  I’d always been impressed with the spirit of this church – the love & acceptance & kindness we display toward each other – but I fell head over heels in love with this congregation that year.  I wanted you all to know what I saw from you every week, that how even though we all have garbage going on in our lives, we all have deep wounds and broken hearts, you, my friends, are magnificent.

By the end of my year, I was exhausted, overwhelmed & frightened.  Frightened?  Well, we were getting a new minister.  God knows I knew that this congregation needed a professional and I had spent the year trying to prepare the church for this change, but – I didn’t know her.  Would she be a good fit?  Would she see what I saw? Would she take care of this congregation? Could she love them as much as I did?

And then, I met Margret.

It was a rough start.  I withdrew from all worship-related activities (except for choir, please, let’s not be crazy) and tried to fade into the background to give Margret a chance to get to know you.  That was hard for me.

But she was amazing. First day in, she was handed a hardhat & got to work on the issues with the rebuilding of the sanctuary.  She rolled up her sleeves, took a deep breath & took us on.  I watched her as she slowly began to familiarize herself with the congregation, helped us decide on our goals for her ministry (the cultures of abundance, connection & trust) and the strange & wondrous uh, eccentricities of our governance.  She watched us with a keen eye to see where we could improve, where we were strong & where we were just plain fun. 

Then, COVID hit.  The world shut down.  Worship went online with technology none of us were overly adept at, and we didn’t miss a beat.

Wearing two pairs of socks & preaching to a tiny camera down in the ice palace of Fellowship Hall in March 2020, Margret began to approach sainthood.  (There were a bunch of saints back then – Natasha, Marla Russell, Paula, Bob Stewart & the unsung tech folks, bless them.)  Margret guided us through that awful time and we came out of it with a brand new sanctuary & a more committed congregation.  We didn’t want to let Covid damage us and Margret used all of her experience & tools to make sure we would thrive again. 

With a new sanctuary, the culture of abundance was bearing fruit.  The other two Developmental Goals – the culture of trust & the culture of connection – still needed some work.

The culture of Trust required a more transparent system of governance so Margret worked with the Board on clarifying church policies and transitioned us to a governance by policy model.  As a current & former Board member, I can tell you that this single change for the Board may be the sanest, most consequential work we have ever done.  It sounds dry & unimpressive, but the ability to say “Oh, that’s not a Board function.  Here’s who you need to talk to. OR, wow, that might be a policy change.  Let’s take that to the Governance Advisory Committee and they’ll work with the Board to clarify that policy” is amazing.  Imagine! Like actually knowing how things work around here, who’s in charge of what, and if things need to change, knowing how to do that.  

For the culture of connection, we – all of us – developed a new covenant.  Those of us who attended those circles can look at our covenant & see the result of that hard work.  Some can pick out lines that they themselves wrote, or word smithed (we are UU’s, after all, and God knows that’s what we love to do).  We wrote it all & we own it all.  And as a member of the Search Team, I can tell you that it was our covenant that the various ministerial applicants thought was the most impressive thing about our congregation.

Through these past five years, Margret has dedicated her life to us, working well past any 40-hour work week and she will tell you that she has fallen deeply in love with us as a congregation, with our willingness to change, our dedication to each other, our intelligence, our laughter & our love.

And it’s the love I will remember.  I was worried five years ago whether or not she would recognize what a jewel our congregation is.  Margret took that jewel, buffed it, polished it & made us shine bright.  I will miss Margret as a minister, but more than that I will miss her as a mentor, a guiding light, and a friend.

Thank you, Margret.  Thank you so much.  I’m gonna go cry now.