Introduction As part of my own process of ongoing self-reflection and theological, spiritual and vocational insight, I decided to make a three day visit to the North Central Ministry Development Center in Minneapolis and to follow up with personal reflection and coaching afterward. Parts of this report are taken from my Sabbatical Plan, with the latter part focusing on what arose in coaching and reflection since that time. The life of ministry is a complex interplay of personal, professional, vocational and spiritual experiences, aptitudes, goals and dreams - that are usually interwoven. Because of the “indefinite” nature of a call to settled ministry, it has always seemed to me that it is morally imperative for a minister to reflect deeply and regularly on both his or her overall ministerial vocation and on the specific nature of a particular call. While ongoing spiritual reflection is part of ministerial discipline and practice for most ministers, reflection on a much deeper level often helps to reveal deeper truths. Opportunity for this kind of theological and spiritual vocational reflection is often hard to find amid the deadlines and daily demands of parish ministry. For this reason, some people and places that specialize in ministerial formation, assessment and reflection offer programs and opportunities for ministers to do this deeper work. Indeed, one of our present denominational requirements for being granted Fellowship is an initial assessment through an accredited centre for ministerial vocational assessment. While I entered the process before this requirement was made mandatory, I was intrigued by the idea and volunteered to be one of the first people to experience the assessment process. I completed the basic assessment for ministry long ago and was offered very strong encouragement in my vocational path, along with valuable personal and professional guidance at that early stage of my ministerial life. The North Central Ministry Development Center ( http://www.ncmdc.org  ) does this kind of assessment for our denomination as one of its many services as well. When it is required by the denomination, it is usually funded by them as well. But at this time, I wanted to utilize the skills, testing, counseling, coaching, questioning and assessment process in a different way – for what I self-defined as my voluntary, self-funded “mid career assessment.” Fulfilling denominational requirements for fellowshipping is very different than coming to a place or a point in time with your own specific agenda and vocational questions. The process needs to be much more personal and specific, the questions are unique and the answers relate not so much to whether or not you should do ministry, but how you should do that ministry. They might also reveal a new passion or direction, as well as a need to develop parts of oneself that will enhance ministerial leadership, inspiration and effectiveness in the setting in which you already find yourself. Although there are many places to do this work, and several much closer to home, I had heard from several colleagues (whose opinions I truly respect) who wanted to pursue vocational questions, seek counseling or coaching that the NCMDC in Minneapolis, and in particular, the Center’s Director, Rev. Mark Sundby, were fantastic resources for the kind of reflection in which I wanted to engage. I sought them out late spring and we together designed a process specific to me and my questions, my ministry and my life - to take place prior to, during and after my three day visit in July. This process involved many different kinds of instruments and tests, as well as exhaustive personal reflections, autobiographical statements and several spiritual and theological contemplations. Assessment and Coaching at NCMDC Although my program was personally tailored to my expressed goals and needs, the basic approach to initial Intake and Assessment in NCMDC’s programs include: Journey of faith and vocation in ministry Preferred styles of leadership Experience of call to ministry Personality traits and preferences in ministry Strengths and limitations for ministry Psychosocial development as it relates to ministry Patterns of motivation and interest in ministry Emotional and psychological well-being Their approach to ongoing Coaching is as follows: “Coaching is a collaborative effort between an individual and their coach to improve ministerial performance, broaden professional competencies, and increase life satisfaction. We take a holistic approach to a person's current situation and future goals. Emphasis is on personal growth, professional development, and life transformation. Coaching involves meeting regularly with a counselor in person or by telephone. It is a confidential and safe place to reflect on your ministry and identify opportunities for growth.” Coaching generally focuses on all or most of these areas: Leadership Skills Work/Life Balance Conflict Management Interpersonal Effectiveness Life Planning Deep Learning and Insights My three days at NCMDC were invaluable for me professionally and transformative personally, pointing the way to deep work to accomplish during sabbatical. While some of the insights were intensely personal, I want to share the parts that impacted most on my work as your minister – which therefore informed the sabbatical choices I made. This work is not yet completed, but is essentially a blueprint for the ongoing work I need to do to build on and strengthen the insights I gained at NCMDC. Coaching continues with Rev. Mark Sundby on an ongoing basis as needed. I apologize in advance if some of what follows seems obvious, immodest or too personal. It is very difficult to separate the personal from the professional in gaining understanding and insight into ministry, for who you are as a person has a huge impact upon who you are as a minister. For each of you to truly understand the purpose, meaning and results of the assessment I undertook therefore I believe requires genuine honesty, transparency and engagement on my part. Affirmation for Ministry and Leadership The assessment was incredibly affirming for both ministry and leadership in both my aptitudes and experience. I tested very high (“at a level we rarely see”) on 18 out of 21 markers for ministry and leadership. As Rev. Sundby put it; “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you aren’t meant to be a minister or a leader. Ministry is a perfect fit for your skill set, parish ministry in particular, and you are a natural leader.” I demonstrated a very mature and thorough understanding of the complexities of ministry, the important part that self-awareness in clergy and laity play in community life, the interplay of congregational dynamics (healthy as well as “at-risk”), human organizational behaviour and the role, power, perils and pitfalls of the spiritual leader and of hopeful human community. In a word, Rev. Sundby said “You really get it; you understand the rewards and challenges of ministry in your core.” Given a thorough understanding of the unique challenges of ministry (and in particular parish ministry in a first long term pastorate – which is becoming less and less common) the challenge then becomes how do I translate this experience and knowledge into education, example and effective leadership in my own parish setting? The Real and the Ideal I believe that the chief challenge and the responsibility that come with this insight are to be able to hold the real and the ideal joyfully and hopefully (even prayerfully!) alongside one another in your ministry to a spiritual community full of imperfect souls, yourself included! As my colleague Rev. Jack Mendelsohn said in a piece entitled “Who is a Unitarian Universalist Minister?” “A Unitarian Universalist Minister is a person never completely satisfied or satisfiable, never completely adjusted or adjustable – a person who walks in two worlds; one of things as they are, the other of things as they ought to be – and loves them both.” Or as I put it as a Good Officer to a colleague who was struggling with what she defined as an “unhealthy” congregation and pondering how a colleague could serve there “I guess if you are an intuitive person, you can fall in love with the church that they could be!” I believe that there is always an element of idealization in all relationships where we see the “other” as we wish they could be, but religious community, with its vision of the ‘Beloved Community’ (to quote Martin Luther King Jr.), is particularly vulnerable to both the idealization and the disappointment of this approach. Ministers too are prone to this pitfall, and I have certainly found myself in places of frustration and even conflict over the years as I tried to communicate a vision (whether that vision was of growth, kindness, inclusivity, spiritual depth, music ministry or outreach to the city, to name a few) and motivate the congregation (or occasionally the individual!) to become the church I hoped it could be. I believe that I need to take a step back from this approach and look very closely and clearly at the church “as it is,” celebrate the beauty and health that is there, ‘speak the truth in love’ about the challenges, let the congregation decide who it wants to be and serve, and move forward from there. Or, as a Christian colleague said once when I asked about her congregation at a clergy lunch: “Oh, the church? It will be whatever God wants it to be. I don’t worry about that at all!” Her theology may differ from some of ours, but it makes the point that the minister cannot “push the river” (to use a Buddhist phrase) and can lead only by moral suasion, at most. Loving Your People "Though I may speak with bravest fire, And have the gift to all inspire, And have not love, my words are vain, As sounding brass, and hopeless gain. Though I may give all I possess, And striving so my love profess, But not be given by love within, The profit soon turns strangely thin. Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control, Our spirits long to be made whole. Let inward love guide every deed; By this we worship, and are freed." My assessment also revealed great tenderness and love for the church and the people I serve. (In addition to speaking about the death of my sister, describing my call and commitment to serve the people of my church was the other time I was moved to tears during three days of very intense counseling.) It is a very sacred thing to me. This love I believe is essential to one Called and Covenanted to serve in ministry; it is indeed impossible to minister without it. As Rev. Robert Raible at the 50 year address to his UU ministerial colleagues said: “There is only one rule for being an effective minister in our free church. It is to be fond of people… Make no mistake about it. If you are entering our tradition because you like to preach, or because you know truths that the world ought to hear, or because you have ideals which you want others to practice, I beg of you to quit now, before it is too late, before you cause incalculable harm. You will be useful only if you can love each person as a divine entity, as a child of God in human guise capable of infinite possibilities.” This relationship is also one of mutual caring, with special but unique and distinct parts to play for both minister and member. Rev. John Weston (Director of Ministry Transitions, formerly called the Settlement Director at the UUA Department of Ministry and Professional Services) writes: “The relationship of mutuality between a Unitarian Universalist Minister and a Unitarian Universalist congregation is Covenantal; mutual in trust, mutual in accountability and mutual in care. The Covenantal relationship is thus prior to any words about it. The Covenantal relationship is the most important thing.” Truly Incarnational Theology: What Comes to Life in You I also discovered (or re-discovered, really) that I am at heart a preacher and a pastor, one who fortunately or unfortunately met with enough success in these roles that the church grew and I then needed to learn to become another kind of minister as well. I love the ‘Arts of Worship’ with a passion - music, poetry, beauty, aesthetics, ritual, prayer and meditation, the spoken word and creative writing and am never happier than when sharing this passion, be it in a ‘Writing for Worship’ workshop, encouraging music staff to go to the UU Musicians’ Network Conference or engaging in the weekly creative struggle of sermon research, writing, crafting liturgy and beauty and offering it on Sunday morning. I love the variety of subjects presented by the state of the world, the human condition, the turn of the year, our own UU faith, the diversity of world religions and the thousands of books and ideas that open themselves to challenge me to try and find a nugget of inspiration to help my people get through the week with a little more grace, hope, fortitude or humour and to use that grace or hope to in turn, bless and heal the world. I am also truly in my heart a pastor - so grateful for the privilege of walking with people pastorally through the hardest passages of their lives and deeply challenged, changed and touched by one-on-one counseling, spiritual guidance and companioning. I feel a depth of indescribable gratitude and grace when I realize that my presence has made a healing difference in someone’s life and miss the opportunity to minister to people in this way on a more regular basis as the church has grown. I almost chose hospital chaplaincy as my ministerial vocation because I love the spiritual ‘purity’ of simply being with people in need. And my own recent experiences with losses and death have only served to emphasize how deeply I feel called to this way of ministering. I have given serious thought to volunteering in the now very under-funded hospital chaplaincy programs on my days off when I return to work and Lily Rose starts school during the day. I have been very conscious since the church started to grow about the ‘sacrifice’ of becoming a program church minister for me personally. I chose to become what churches our size need their minister to be – and did professional development and changed the way I do ministry - at a cost to my personal satisfaction – but did it because that’s what “loving the church the way it was” - or had become - required. But I had not realized how far from the heart of my calling it had taken me. I went into the ministry because I love people, loved going to church and making music, loved visiting those who couldn’t make it to church and teaching in Sunday school and leading junior choir; because I care deeply about kindness and injustice and wanted to create a more just world and believed that being a part of and helping to lead and grow a spiritual community was one of the best ways to express and expand those passions. Three decades later I find myself in some ways further away from those simple goals than I was back then! The advent of email and technology means I spend more time with my computer than with my parishioners, and the roles and demands of ministering to a church this size are too great in tandem with the expectations (my own and others) that accompany a smaller church (the church I was called to) and a different pastoral style of ministry. I have discovered (as do almost all colleagues in the throes of this transition) that the new set of expectations and time demands is simply added to the old one, without taking anything away! The end result is a minister who turns themselves inside out trying to be all things to all people, without even always being aware of it. And the result for the church is that there are many different, competing and confusing ideas about what the minister is and should be doing. Conflict at this stage of the church’s growth is almost inevitable, and as my first ministry assessment observed, although I have learned good professional skills about how to mediate and navigate through conflicts, I vastly prefer harmony. An Alternate Model I have yet to discover a healthy church our size and larger who does not have the minister as head of staff and ultimately responsible for the health and welfare of the administration of the church, but I have begin to wonder and to research if there are alternate models out there that might free a minister with a heart like mine to do the work to which she feels most called while still having her ‘hand on the rudder’ helping to guide the ship. I know that in very large congregations with multiple clergy, often one minister is called to the ministry of administration, another to the ministry of preaching and pastoring, another to social justice ministry, another to youth ministry, etc. And I know of some UU congregations that have hired staff (reporting to the minister) - who function as “chief of staff,” handling the greater share of administrative leadership and administration and support staff supervision, thus freeing the minister more fully to be a spiritual leader, preacher, pastor and ‘prophet.’ The model with which I am most familiar was practiced at Arlington Street Church, one of our flagship Boston churches, between the Senior Minister Kim Crawford Harvie and a layperson who subsequently entered the ministry and is now the minister at Toronto First – Rev. Shawn Newton (who is my ‘mentee’) I welcome further inquiry into this and will following it up over the next several months. ‘Comforting the Afflicted’ and ‘Afflicting the Comfortable’ But I know in my bones I truly am a minister who is more at home “comforting the afflicted” than “afflicting the comfortable” as the minister’s work is often described. Not when the “comfortable” are people who need to be informed and inspired about injustice in the world, but when “afflicting the comfortable” means naming and illuminating entrenched dynamics that impede the congregation’s spiritual progress, asking people to let go of long-standing ways of being and doing church, asking them to accept that their power or control will alter when professional ministry and competent staff are functioning as a team and serving the church well, asking them to understand that we cannot grow in any way – spiritually, numerically, financially, in programs or outreach, in staff or ministry, in learning, teaching, deepening or caring – without experiencing a great deal of change, and asking them to accept ministry and the role of the minister in a new way in the midst of that change. And most of all, when asking them to put the health, strength and potential ministry of the congregation ahead of or at least along side of their own personal need within that congregation. I believe that at this stage of the church’s growth and development, these truths must be deeply realized, understood, accepted and championed by the laity before the congregation will be able to hear them from their spiritual leader. The congregation needs to mature into having a vision of its purpose, its ministry, indeed, its very reason for existence – that transcends any individual in time or space who is a part of it. If the church is to truly serve, as Protestant theologian Martin Marty said “The world before church and the world after Postude” it must have a powerful vision of internal individual personal transformation and change as well as collective engagement in ‘making heaven here on earth.” At times we have come very close; at other times in our history we have been insular in focus and far from a unifying and transformational vision of our congregation’s ministry. But I have realized that for me as a leader and as a human being, the need for kindness and a sense of justice are some of my highest values, and I thrive in a human community that allows that to flourish. Micah 6:8 I will give you a concrete example from my own ministerial life. A few days before a dear, dear man named Hiram Wood died, I was to visit him again in the hospital for what I feared (and was proven right) would be the last time. I had reports to do piled sky high – staffing reports, administrative reports, reports on ministry, so many reports and documents and dozens of emails to answer and sermon preparation and tons of denominational paperwork. I was very behind in my work, but wanted to see Hiram in case this was the last chance. Peter, too, had an evening meeting and cancelled it to go with me; he loved Hiram dearly, as did I. I thought about my last visit a few days earlier when I had brought Hiram a sprig off a flowering tree from my back yard for his bedside table. He recognized it immediately, said “That’s an apple tree” and got talking about how much he liked apple pie. (His appetite was good until the end.) That afternoon, I weighed all the work I had to do. I felt swamped by the undone paperwork and computing I had to do so that I could be almost caught up to what I should have done yesterday. And I also thought “I could just go out and buy the best juiciest apples I can find and make Hiram a fantastic apple pie.” I made the pie. And the reports were late or remained undone. And for me, the unforgettable pleasure that Peter and I got watching Hiram eat that pie with great gusto - a few days before he departed this earth – passed my “end of life” test – which is “When I look back at the end of my life, will I say “I am glad I made the choices I did? I’m glad I made Hiram that pie and didn’t do those reports?” and the answer is “Yes!” That’s who I am in my heart. And that’s who I want to be in my ministry. Maybe not baking pies for everyone in the church, but better able to put my skills, time and energy in the service of the Spirit of Love as I feel it to be: “To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with my God.” The prophet Micah (Micah 6:8) comes as close as anyone in describing it. Where the Holy Resides I wrote in my sabbatical plan “While I am very comfortable with the mantle of ministerial leadership in its positive sphere and influence (eg. the opportunity to make a difference, to heal, to help, to inspire) I continue to struggle a lot with its negative manifestations; attracting projections and transference, keeping the peace in human community and personal and professional criticism both of self and others (I find unkindness in human community particularly hard to witness). Since the likelihood of a spiritual leader or indeed any member of a covenanted community completely avoiding these reactions, responses and experiences is nil, I need to decide what path I want to take to have greater inner peace with their existence.” I consider this the most difficult aspect of ministry for me personally, and did some deep work (reading, reflection and consultation as well as spiritual partnering) on this challenge common to so many in leadership positions who aspire to excellence. It is particularly potent in the ministerial vocation where (whether your faith professes it or not) “holy power” (for good or for ill) is often felt or projected and the ministerial role is particularly vulnerable to falling short of people’s hopes and expectations (consciously expressed or unconscious). Rev. Carl Scovel, who was for many years the minister at King’s Chapel, the oldest and probably most well-known Unitarian church in North America, said this to his colleagues upon his retirement: “I realize now how hard it was, harder than I thought at the time, harder than I dared to admit. But now I see that the hardness was due to more than an imperfect cleric and imperfect congregations. The hardness was inherent in the role of clergy, and nobody ever told me.” As Rev. John Weston points out in his brilliant sermon “How Long Should a Ministry Last?” “Scovel recalled the idea of the great historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, that the priest, preacher, rabbi, guru, imam – any person whose task it is to treat with ultimate meaning and ultimate value – stands on the boundary between the holy and the human, the sacred and the profane. And talking to his colleagues, Scovel went on: “Let me posit for you that in our ordinations to ministry, no matter how plain and prosaic may have been those ceremonies, we stepped onto that boundary line between those two realms. Whether our “most high” be the Trinity, a Heavenly Parent, Nature, the Universe, or the Best Humanity Can Think Of – regardless of our conceptions of the Other, yet all these words in different ways describe an ideal, an uncompromised order which humankind has failed and which we (ministers) are called upon to represent and interpret. Regardless of our theologies or styles of ministry I think we all stand between our people and that to which they still aspire. The placement on the boundary is inherent in our role as clergy and the task of just standing there is, I suggest, not just heavy but impossible…We, the imperfect, are called to the imperfect, and before them to embody, incarnate, live out the tension between these two realms.” Weston goes on to describe this tension as “the long, drawn out sacrifice of the minister on the altar of the congregation’s impossible expectations.” I believe that this deep spiritual truth about the “life ministerial” is very difficult to see from the congregation’s perspective; yet every minister I know understands exactly what Scovel and Weston are talking about. In my own instance, I realized that I value greatly the personal sensitivity I bring to ministry, even when it makes absorbing the wounds and criticisms that are inevitable for those in leadership positions difficult or painful. After deep and studied reflection (and some good coaching) I realize that I do not want to grow a thicker skin or learn not to care as I believe that my best gifts for ministry come precisely out of my sensitivity and out of the fact that I care deeply – about the world, about my church, about our UU values, about myself and about those I love. So it is not a matter of changing how I feel or who I am and trying to become a “more perfect minister,” but it is more a case of changing how I respond to being placed on that “altar of impossible expectations,” understanding that it is inherent in the role and trying not to take it personally. Integrating Grief – A Life’s Work I stated in my Sabbatical Plan that I had “greatly underestimated the impact of ongoing grief in my personal life (the deaths of our children, infertility and the recent death of my sister) and the attendant questions and crisis of faith and meaning and how they have impacted my ministry.” "Sometimes I'm up and sometimes I'm down Oh yes, lord; sometimes I'm almost to the ground" While I have attended to these losses over the years with therapy and counseling, rituals of remembrance, journaling and writing, my efforts to heal and integrate these losses have always been fitted in between the demands of a very busy work life where an appointment with a grief therapist felt like just one more thing to try and squeeze into my daytimer. That and the cumulative effect over time of the grief of infertility and baby loss (which is, as one counselor put it “The only loss that gets worse over time, not better!) had caught up to me. It was very, very helpful to be able to actually take the time to do this “work of the spirit” to the depth and breadth that my sabbatical allowed. I was able to devote substantial time and reflection to understanding the deeper ramifications of the loss of my sister (who, at 7 years older than me I realize was a second mother to me as well as a sister, soul mate and best friend) for my life and my work as well as my soul and faith. No-one in the helping profession speaks of ‘closure’ related to bereavement any more but more often ‘integration’ where the losses we all experience become a part of the fabric of our lives, not less present but over time, less painful as they are placed in the larger context of the gifts that have been given by having known and loved. After years of missing family occasions or driving 7 hours after church on a Sunday to get there for holiday dinners and turning around again the next day to come back, it was greatly healing for me to experience the round of “firsts” together with my family; first Thanksgiving at the cottage since my sister died, first Christmas without her, the first anniversary of her death and first occasion of her Birthday since she died. In addition, in the fall, I twice traveled to Kingston with my family to remember and honour my sister; once to see a retrospective of her art at a show put on by a group of which she was a founding member “Kingston Fibre Artists” and another time to meet and break bread with a group of her closest friends at the opening of a vegetarian restaurant run by her spiritual community. My sister’s spiritual travels took her to a Bengali guru and on the first anniversary of her death, I found myself doing yoga in India at sunrise with a Bengali yoga instructor, looking out over the ocean. I also was able to perform rituals of remembrance in Hindu temples and shrines in India and in Hindu and Buddhist ones in Nepal, from tucking a small token of her presence into an ancient stone stupa high up in the Himalayas to praying at a prayer wheel at the Bauddha, the holiest Buddhist temple in Kathmandu. My sister left me all of her personal and spiritual journals that go back many years up until 3 days before she died, and I am slowly undertaking the intense, often painful and yet also inspiring task of going through them one at a time (there are over 30). This process, the rituals of remembrance and the work of integrating her loss and the meaning of her life into mine will continue for the rest of my life, I know. On sabbatical I began work on a large work of fabric art in her honour I have called “Her Name is Written on the Tree of Life” that will include fabrics from almost all of her own collection (including many that she made into clothing for her children when they were small) and many from her family and friends as well, including some I found in my travels on sabbatical. Several of us will meet periodically to remember, to contribute, to heal and to sew together. Integrating the grief of infertility and baby loss is a more complex thing, as it was a loss spread out over 10 years and taking many different forms. Writing and journaling has been my saving grace, as this poem, which I wrote out of the grief of letting go of the children I had conceived and lost so that I could embrace a child of my heart – perhaps illustrates. “To My Little One No, not yet here Not born or even conceived Yet you are on the way As surely as someone Who has set out on a long journey The day will come when Your weary feet will find your way to my door You will curl up in the comfort of my arms look up and know that you are home Till then you live in my heart In my mind's eye In my determined spirit and stubborn body In my refusal to give up In the candle shining in the window In this resolute struggle to wrest life out of death In the dark and the cold, Alone with no compass I will go out to meet you I will carry a light And I will keep walking I will narrow the distance Meet you more than half way I will not rest Until you are safe No mother leaves her child alone in the dark When I have found you What will I offer? I want to give you the world of my choosing But the hard lessons of mothering begin before you arrive I cannot give you the world I would wish for you Only the world as it is I cannot give you my big brown eyes But I can give you eyes that look on the world with wonder I cannot give you my happy spirit But I can give you the delight of a mother with a happy spirit I cannot give you my musical ability, or love of dance But I can raise you in a house filled with music I can dance with you in my arms every day I can not give you my intelligence But I can show you books and nature, Ideas and people; Tell you stories and poems; Unlock the mysteries of learning and thought, And awaken your Spirit to awe I cannot give you what was born in me, but what I made of it It is not all of me, but it is a good gift, one worth giving. The rest will be you. As for the world that I do offer It is not a perfect place. It is a place where sadness sometimes comes before joy and other times after it Where sometimes things work out the way you want sometimes another way and sometimes, not at all. It is still a beautiful world And I still want you in it And I am still walking toward you With my small light shining Through this endless dark night.” My 10 year journey to motherhood has born rich lessons, spiritual insight and empathy within me, and although finally becoming a mother has gone a long way to filling the void left by infertility and the loss of my previous children, it cannot change what went before. Since I am a meaning- making person, for random suffering to have any meaning it must somehow be redeemed by what comes after, and this is not a burden I would place on our child! It is a spiritual process that I will willingly undertake in the years to come. I do feel called to minister to families who have struggled with the grief of infertility, baby and child loss, and will do that with writing, and perhaps in time, counseling. At this time I am in conversation with experts in the field about writing a resource called “The Spiritual Struggle of Infertility” that can be of use to them in their work, and also about being “on call” as a spiritual advisor to those who are really struggling with the crisis of faith that often accompanies the death, loss and/or absence of children. My time at NCMDC with my clergy coach, Rev. Mark Sundby, was invaluable in helping me identify the theological and vocational issues embedded in this work and my relationship of Spiritual Partnering was a place to which I was able to bring much of this integrative grief work. But although the losses we experience are always with us, I do feel a great ‘release’ of grief after giving it the time, reflection, ritual, prayer and attention it deserved. Generativity The force of “Generativity” has been described as “The ability to plant a tree under whose branches you know you will not sit.” As we go through life, this ability to “pass on” what we have learned, to collaborate, to mentor, to teach, to inspire and ultimately, to let go of outcomes and the primacy of our place in the scheme of things – becomes key to our happiness and to the legacy we leave behind. I have discovered a shift in my primary orientation toward ministry that I first experienced in changing the way I do ministry to adjust to the growing size of the church, but which has been further developed as I have been asked to teach, supervise, mentor and support others in ministry. This shift has been to feel as much grace and gratitude in observing the work of those with whom I have collaborated or whom I have inspired as I do from my own efforts. I greatly enjoy working collaboratively with people who are committed and competent as well as very talented in their fields and was gratified to finally (after 10 years of advocating!) attain Professional Music Staff and have been able to send them for professional and collegial connection and development at the UU Musicians Network Conference. I have enjoyed positive and synergistic relationships with the excellent staff by which we have been served. I loved supervising as well as being in theological, mentoring and collegial reflection with our first Intern Minister, Karen Fraser Gitlitz, who will graduate this spring, be ordained next fall and will be serving 2 congregations next year as a Consulting Minister in Nanaimo and Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Frederick May Eliot, former AUA President and founding Board member of the Unitarian Service Committee, received the right hand of Fellowship from his father Charles Eliot and gave it to both my former Mentor, Rev. David Pohl and Rev. Dr Alan Deale, who gave it to me at my Ordination in Boston. I have been asked to give it to two new ministers serving in Canada, the latter being Karen Fraser Gitlitz who I will happy to welcome into ministerial and collegial fellowship at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver next September, connecting her to a remarkable heritage of learning, justice-making and service. Over the last few years I have also been privileged to walk with 2 students in Field Education (June Gilbertson and Carly Gaylor) as well as one who is already a respected denominational colleague as she transitions into theological student and ultimately ministerial colleague roles (Linda Thomson). All of these relationships have been rich and rewarding. I have also been an official Mentor (as required by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee and Department of Ministry during the first three years of “Preliminary Fellowship” in ministry) to Rev. Meg Roberts, the UU minister in Calgary and lately to Rev. Shawn Newton, the newly called and arrived minister of Toronto First. I agreed to be available to Shawn even though on Sabbatical and bring an unique perspective on ministry to the church that was my home congregation from the late 1970s until I was ordained and called to Hamilton in 1996. I am honoured to be able to be of service to this vibrant flagship church and their dynamic new minister. Having been an active UU since the age of 12 and a layperson for 25 years, I realized on reflection that I often still wear a “layperson’s hat” when I approach issues, and am still sometimes surprised to find myself in a leadership role. Yet as the longest serving minister in Hamilton’s history and, at 12 years, the second longest-serving minister presently serving their congregation in Canada, I have to begin to acknowledge the value of what I have learned and have to pass on. And I need to be conscious about sharing it with others in ministry. This is a gift that the congregation has grown in me and, I believe, a gift that together we can and should offer to other students and an expanding professional staff. UU Values The UU Principle I feel is most connected to the insights gained through the Ministry Development Center is Principle 4… • A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; … And the first theological “Source:” • Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life; Next Page