First of all, I want to express another thank you to Bronwen Jones and the outgoing board. Even though they will continue to be active among us, especially since I will be constantly asking them questions, they deserve our special gratitude at this time. They have served us well for many years through times of challenge and transition, and we have accomplished several important goals during their tenure.

 

I also want to thank our Acting Minister, Reverend Erika Hewitt, for stepping so gracefully into our pulpit. Her intelligence, compassion, and good counsel will see us successfully through our minister’s family

leave.

 

I am proud to be elected your president and I am excited to greet the upcoming year. I am at a point in

my life where time seems shorter. I recognize the need to say what I want to say and do the things that

seem important. The opportunity to serve as your president feels like the culmination of a journey that began when I was a child, attending Unitarian church in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Recently, I have been remembering an experience I had in high school. I was 14 or 15, and I chose to attend a UU leadership training camp for a week on a lake about three hours from my home. I went alone — I didn’t know anyone there — and slept in a cabin and went to workshops. I don’t remember the process of deciding to go, but I’m sure I was scared. I also must have been quite motivated. Interestingly, one of the main things I

remember about the experience is my new bathing suit, a one-piece made of orange and white stripes. I

was self-conscious, but apparently also excited about it. I remember the trees, and groups of kids and a volleyball game. I also remember very clearly a moment after I had returned home, when I had just

finished leading some kind of a group discussion, and I realized that I actually was a better leader and

that the techniques I had learned at camp were helping me be more effective. I am personally moved by

the symmetry of the idea that my high school camp trained me to become, 50 years later, the president of

my church.

 

We never know, really, all of the effects of our actions. Our community is special because it has the

ability to weave itself into the fabric of our lives and wrap itself around us from the beginning to the end.

I am especially looking forward to working with Reverend Rebecca during this remarkable year in her

life, when her family welcomes and gets to know Nathan, their second child. This is a unique opportunity for all of us in the congregation. As we continue to practice what it means to be human, we must surely know that a young family will need our support, and our generous giving of ourselves.We will be excited to have Rebecca back among us, and she will be excited to be back. Together we will embark upon the journey of nourishing new life, including the many possibilities for new congregational life, as Rebecca begins her third year with us.

This is more than a symbolic thought.  We will have a new roof to keep the rain out, and give us shelter from the storm. We will have a new website. We have new staff people. I have most recently served on the personnel committee, and I am impressed by the many gifts these new people bring to us.  We have one another, and

all the good work we do in our community and in the wider world.

 

I haven’t presented you with much of a platform. I do have opinions, which are sometimes open to discussion; I still have much to learn, and I have personal UU-shaped values, which will help me navigate the road I travel with you. In the end, just as President Obama explained when he expressed his support for same-sex marriage, the value I care about most deeply is how I treat other people. As your president, I care most about how we as a community treat one another.

 

— Cynthia Cottam