From the minister:

What’s Your Baggage?

On our trip to Transylvania to visit our partner church, two of our three bags didn’t arrive in Budapest. In that one bag was an assortment of clothes, shoes, and sundries. We had Lisa’s makeup but none of our underwear. On the way to Tordátfalva, our guides stopped at a large store, Kaufland, the German version of Wal-Mart. There we bought underwear and a pair of pants that our son, Thomas, wore to church on Sunday and I wore to paint on Monday. Imagine my surprise to find out that in Romanian underwear sizes, I’m an extra-large!

For the next four days, we lived out of that one bag. It wasn’t difficult at all. In fact, the minister of our partner church, Lajos Lörinczi, laughed at the number of outfits that Lisa was able to put together. The real shock happened when the other two bags arrived. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by all the clothes! I realized that I’d packed way too many T-shirts and more socks and books than I could possibly need. Looking into the bags became a frustrating experience as I could never find the piece of clothing I wanted – a task much easier when I had only one pair of pants and two shirts to choose from.

The idea of baggage became a metaphor on this trip. In a place where most of the traffic was horse carts, where my cell phone was useless, and where I tried to resist the temptation of logging on to Lajos’ computer, many of the things I thought were essential proved to be encumbrances. After returning home, it took several days for me to reestablish the habit of checking email regularly, and I still find myself resentful of the power the screen holds over my day.

Along with habits and material things that we carry with us, there are also patterns of thought and belief that may not really help us be what we want to be in the world. As a religious community, our mission should be discovering what beliefs and actions help us be the most whole, within ourselves and within our world. What baggage prevents us from living in harmony with the world? What helps?

As we enter a new year at the Fellowship, we’ll begin by exploring some of the baggage that we, as individuals and as a society, carry that keeps us from living in harmony with our planet. Programs this August will focus on sustainability in a very practical way and will also touch on the underlying beliefs that may contribute to our accumulation of earth-destroying baggage. These programs are a first step for our congregation. My hope is that we will follow them with community forums and practical opportunities to make a difference.

My goal this year is to explore these essentials for our community. How can we help each other in both discerning and enacting those beliefs? I believe that providing opportunities to be together, celebrating our connections, and creating moments of joy is one important function. So, along with classes and groups, we’ll be adding Friday Nights at the Fellowship. This will be a chance to gather as a community and find joy in simply being. Your September newsletter will provide a full schedule of events.

-- Brian