Minister's Corner - May 2024

I thought I would share a poem I was sent from a fellow Minister about a nameless person’s return to church after a long hiatus. It is titled “What I missed about church.” I thought it represented our community here at First Parish pretty well. Feel free to share it with anyone who you might think might be served by our community.

“Church shopping, I see?” He said with a smirk,

The chalkboard and nails grip my shoulders…which jerk

This seems like the right place…I say in my head,

but a curt, sly response...what was actually said.

I knew when it came out I sounded perturbed,

There the sting of this scorpions’ tail he’d observed.

Many years I’d avoided religion at whole,

‘Cept marriage and babies, to baptize their soul

As the years slowly passed on, I knew that I missed,

The kinship that’s catalogued within a church list

And now I was looking for a spiritual home,

a place to belong to where my family could roam

I wanted to tell him I wasn’t like scores,

of other strange people who’d blown through these doors

I wanted a safe place, a family of sorts.

Sharing both "joys and sorrows";… a group of supports

I wanted to give to my kids a good base,

I wanted to teach them we are "One Human Race".

I’d love for them never to see black skin or white,

To know in their heart that to love is what’s right

To be caring and thoughtful, helping out, growing strong.

And to choose their own path without fear that it's wrong

I longed to provide them the arms of a tribe

To feel comfort in being and not have to hide

I wanted to give them the peer groups I’d had,

The places and faces both happy and sad

But without the damnation, the judgment and strife,

That surrounded the churches I’d toured through my life.

I would not deter them from finding their way

I'd show them some options, then see what they say.

Now not just the children was I hoping to place,

I was looking for comfort, faith that I could embrace

I wanted a group, who would move me along,

Find a way to start living, and a place to belong

I longed for the people, to be back with some peers

To have elders to look on for direction or cheers

I hoped I had found it, Hoped that this was the place

That we were “born to be together”, in an “interwoven lace"

With time I will know where this yearning will lead

I’ll follow this path and my soul it shall feed.

Maybe it wouldn’t fit I don’t know