Minister’s Corner: Meeting the Moment
As you have and will hear, there were seemingly impossible challenges, and hurdles that led our religious ancestors to hand us this building, and this legacy.
There were gaps in time when there were years of no services, money problems, failed ministries, and questions about how to maintain the building. And there were times of thriving, growth in attendance, and a powerful influence over the town and its future. Lots of twists and turns happened to get us to here. However, alongside the easy to note events of when new buildings were built and long successful ministries got started were the endless work, done by the now nameless volunteers.
What I also know, simply because it is true of every church, is that all throughout First Parish’s Church history there was generation after generation of hearty people. Volunteers, who like our generations Jeanne Cahill, Gordon Hart, and Celia Brown, in an unbroken line made the church thrive and/or at least always survive.
I encourage you in this march through the history of notable events remember that there were a continuous line of unnamed, unsung people that kept the church going. Let’s pause for a sober moment to remember, if not in name, in spirit that for 200 years, parishioners have done whatever was necessary for us to be here today.
The silent bulk of every church’s history is made up not by what any minister or President said, not when new pews were installed but what unnamed and unheralded volunteers and church leaders did.
Please pause in tribute to all those people women and men who got up to ring the bell on cold church mornings, coordinated meals for sick folks, set up tables, and taught Sunday School, and ran zoom sessions.
It is always the people who interrupt their day to in one generation meet the local blacksmith and in another the electrician that matter most. Props to all of them and to the present generation of Donna’s Lise’s, and Dave’s who just do what’s necessary. There is never enough thanks given to the people who quietly step up do what is necessary, but here is at least one.
As we head towards finding ways to celebrate our new and improved steeple, and revel in the fact that we no longer fear standing directly under the bell for being in a very unwelcome way being a part of First Parish’s history, I have had fun and found it helpful to grasp the scope of time we are dealing with to imagine all the varieties of clothing that First Parish members spanning more than the roughly 12 generations of American’s must have been wearing as they served the church in all the ways people do, cause they must. That’s a lot of wardrobe changes.
Any costume designer commissioned to dress actors for the movie version of our history would be taxed.
First Parish Northborough of course has its own unique journey, but even today as we honor it, it must be said that it is part of something larger. Our service on August 10th, 2025 will touch on that. In that service we will also hear a reading of Allan Finnegan’s poem “If I could Change the World” read at the Worcester No Kings Day June 12th.