Sightings
the Rev. Edmund Robinson
   
      Our good ship is tacking to windward, rounding the headlands my brother-in-law calls Cape August, from whose vantage point you can see back along the balmy coast of Summer and ahead to the inlet and coves of Fall and, somewhere in the mists ahead, you can vaguely make out the outlines of Winter.  Yet the last few grains of summer are still draining from the hourglass.  As visitors with school-age children leave to resume classes, the mid-Cape towns begin to settle back into their year-round mode.  Traffic eases, soon you will be able to resume making left turns. Year-rounders look forward to this time when the water is still warm, and we have the beaches, harbors and trails to ourselves.

    The Meeting House is going through some transitions too.  Our RE director, Joan McDonald, has not renewed her contract with us because of other demands on her time.  Thank you, Joan, for your service to us in a time of need, and we wish you well in your future endeavors.  But as one door closes, another opens.  The talented Naomi Turner, who put on such a wonderful dance celebration of the Summer Solstice in June, is working on designing a Religious Education program based on the arts.  The contours of it are still being formed, but it will be based on a very successful RE program at the Rochester, NY UU church.  Arts programs, as you may know, are being cut back in the public schools, and it is my hope that an arts-based RE program will be attractive to parents in our area towns.
   
   Another transition the Meeting House is undergoing is in brightness.  You may have noticed that the old building is brighter inside and outside, due to some power-washing outside and some wall- scrubbing inside.    The chimneys to the wall sconces were also cleaned.   It looks a lot better in a subtle way. Thanks to Ralph Bauer and the B&G committee for arranging to have this done.  We were even complimented by a recent bride on our appearance! 
   
    Ministry in our congregation is not just what is practiced by the professional minister, but it lives in the way we care for each other, meet needs and witness for our values in the larger world.  Our Pastoral Care team has been operating effectively as a lay ministry program in close cooperation with the professional minister for many years.  We are poised to offer lay ministry training to anyone in the church who wants it in early October.  If you think you might be interested, please save the date of October 2, and a fuller description will appear in the newsletter.
   
    Once again, we will welcome the fall season with a water communion, so please bring to church on September 12 a water sample from some place you have visited over the summer.  Let us conflue.

Do you have a concern you would like to hear addressed from the pulpit?  I am always open to sermon ideas.  Please contact me with your ideas for sermons that would mean something to you.