We are about to start our generosity campaign at UUCM. Instead of reflexively deciding our pledges based on last year, let’s each of us reflect on the various ways this institution feeds us – each and every week, month and year. And still beyond these ways that UUCM gives back, its overarching gift is the gift of community. It is our community that enabled our ancestors to organize during the Civil Rights Movement; that provides thousands of meals to our homeless neighbors each year; that struggled to win marriage equality in NJ; that declares “Black Lives Matter” and mobilizes around structural racism. And most recently, it is our community that organized for the Women’s March and will fight against the coming attack on our rights.
Our community does not exist apart from its congregational home, a building that was erected in the early 20th Century. If our community is to thrive in the coming years, we must invest in our home for the 21st Century and beyond! Think about it: shall we welcome a new minister this spring with a budget that barely covers our bills? Or shall we welcome a new minister with a budget that announces, loud and proud, that we are together equipping our new leader with the resources to respond to the unique challenge and opportunity presented by this new season of struggle for justice in America? Let’s pledge like our lives depend on it. In many ways they actually do.
Mary Moriarty
Trustee-at-Large, Board of Trustees