November 8 Sunday service with Rev. Pat Bessey
I have a myriad of directions I can go with to start this article… so rather than pick one I will go with several.
I want to send love and blessings to Steph Plourde and Dee Capoldo on their marriage that happened on October 31. These two individuals are near and dear to many of us in our community. May your love grow with each passing day.
I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Deana Gurney for her always finding the right music to support the Sunday message. She is part of the dream duo on Sunday morning. The other member of the duo is Chris Purinton. Chris is the steady hand that runs the service and troubleshoots when needed. Thank you both…
Lastly this coming Friday and Saturday your Board of Trustees will be having our annual retreat at Marie Joseph’s to set the direction for our community going forward. As you know 2020 has been a year unlike any other. We will look to the future with a hopeful eye that we will be together in our sanctuary in 2021.
Over the last several weeks we have wondered, grieved, fought, raged, listened and reimagined. This week we breathed together. This is the path we have taken in the series based on the book See No Stranger – A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love written by Valarie Kaur.
The main theme in this week’s message was the importance of loving ourselves and the beloved community. “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” This quote is from Dorothy Day, a social activist in the 20th Century.
Valarie makes a distinction that I never gave thought to before… she talks about self-care as individual, private and separate from others. She shifts the focus to loving ourselves, which happens in community.
Community comes into this when we see that care is labor that we all do for one another, in seen and unseen ways. Our job is to have each other’s back.
In a sermon delivered in 1630 by John Winthrop, he said: “We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together – always having before our eyes… our community as members of the same body.”
Take a break… give yourself the time to watch this service and hear of the Roseto effect.
As you go about your week stay mindful of your breathing. Are you taking full deep breaths or shallow upper body breaths? Is prana increasing or decreasing?
You are a blessing in my life,
Rev. Patricia Bessey
Labyrinths are ancient geometric figures. One leaves one’s worries and stress at the entrance and walks meditatively to the middle. As one walks to the center she/he becomes centered within her/himself, calmer, and more grounded. 
