Welcome from our Minister

From the outside it’s a strange thing we do on a Sunday. A hundred and some of us drive to a building on Browns Road and sit in a hall next to other imperfect people. We sing and share a joy or a sorrow, and I talk for longer than I probably should. Then we plan some good trouble and drink coffee. Much of it is the most ordinary thing in the world, and I’m realizing more and more that it’s exactly what our world needs.

What I’m needing is rarely more shiny new things, new ideas, new technologies, or new ways of governing ourselves. It’s something you might call slow community, like slow food. A group of people who know each other, who meet in a building with a kitchen, who meet every week in every season, in real life, you know, community, the one thing that still can’t be delivered to your door.

My best educated guess at where the word “religion” comes from is the Latin re-ligare, to bind back together, the same root that gives us ligament, and oblige, and rely. I know many reading this will bristle at a minister preaching that religion is about obligation, so let’s say reconnection instead. Slow community is going back to basics, to why we need each other and why we bother to gather at all, and that reconnection is the part I’m searching for here, in a time when it’s hard to remember what a society with love at the center actually looks like.

Everybody here arrived by some winding road, and hearing about yours is my favorite part of this job. Find me at coffee, or write to minister@uufh.org and we’ll set up a time to talk. I’m available by appointment generally Tuesday through Friday. And tell me what you came looking for, if you know yet, because somebody here is probably already doing it and I can introduce you.

People sometimes wonder what a minister is for the rest of the week. Call me when someone is in the hospital or dying, when there is a death, a wedding, a new baby, a diagnosis, a divorce, a lost job, a question about meaning or faith or what you’re doing with your life, or when you need someone to sit with you who isn’t going to try to fix it. You don’t have to be a member and you don’t have to be in a crisis either. Email is the fastest way to reach me, and the office at 631-427-9547 can take a message during business hours.

We meet every Sunday at 10:30 in the morning, in person at 109 Browns Road in Huntington and online on Zoom. If you’re there in person, stay for coffee and come find me.

Rev. Israel Buffardi (he/him)