Plants are sprouting. Bugs are buzzing. The sun is reaching its zenith. Gardens and plots are bearing vegetables and flowers and berries. Or gathering weeds. Summer offers a little more sunlight and rain and, for some anyway, a little more leisure. It’s a great time to grow a soul.
I use that phrase a lot, “to grow a soul.” Life provides many opportunities for soul work (though vastly more for avoiding soul work). Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church offers soul-growing opportunities not just because it’s in our mission, but because church itself is an intensified experience of life.
Over this summer, I’ll be thinking more about how it is that we grow souls at Allegheny, and perhaps how we might do so more intentionally, more conscientiously. How does hospitality and worship and religious education and stewardship and justice work and pastoral care and leadership and volunteering and gathering in community grow the soul of a Unitarian Universalist in the twenty-first century on Pittsburgh’s North Side?
This summer, spend extra time on those experiences that grow your soul, and share those experiences in community so that we all might grow together.
And in all your soul-growing this season, please remember to keep a few drops of water from those places that nourish your soul and we’ll gather those waters together at our annual “Water Communion Sunday” the Sunday after Labor Day. I look forward to seeing you then. And all summer long!
Always Love, Rev Dave