(Fair warning: there are entirely too many exclamation points in this column. It is worth noting that they are sincere exclamation points.)

It’s exciting time around Tahoma UU Congregation! We’re going to have a busy, busy spring this year, and I hope you’re all going to come along and participate in the many activities and opportunities that we have available!

As ever, our regular programming – Sunday worship and Religious Explorations for Children and Youth on Sundays, our Covenant Groups and Chalice Circles, the Wednesday night Religious Explorations classes, Third Friday potlucks, Sandwich Making, and all the rest of our regular programming – will continue on as always, but keep an eye out for other opportunities.

• Our Mission/Vision/Covenant process kicks off this month with two services that invite us to reflect on what’s best in our life together and what’s ahead in the future for us. Your voice and vision is critical to make this work. There will be cottage meetings and a few opportunities at the church to share your thoughts and dreams for TUUC. Watch for announcements and come along and join in!

• Not too long after the end of the cottage meetings, we’ll need your help again in a fun and interesting opportunity to analyze the information we’ve gathered. It will be active and interactive – no sitting around dozing over long lists of thoughts and ideas and dreams, but a process of actively shaping our future together. Another awesome opportunity to add your voice and vision and energy to the life of our congregation!

• A somewhat pared down version of the Auction will take place at the end of February, and you have a chance to get some groovy items, great dinners, and social events. Come one, come all! It’s always a fun and funny time!

• Our next stewardship drive is around the corner, too. Starting in late March, we’ll be asking you to make a pledge to support our dreams and visions (see above). Inspiring and essential to our ongoing life together, we want you – yes, you! – to take part. Watch for your chance to consider our future and promise your  contribution!

There is more, no doubt, plenty to explore and discover, to take part in and to be moved by. The essential part of it all, though, is YOU. We are at our strongest and best when there are many and diverse voices, when there is strong companionship among us, when we listen carefully and closely and especially when we take time to play and sing and dance with one another.

Come along and be part.

A quick note about the service on January 17: I received feedback from a member of the congregation that I may have left the impression that anger and hatred are the same thing. Because when talking about the struggle against oppression, and especially when we’re talking about the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., it is critical to understand the place of anger in the struggle. King was discontent and angry about the treatment of African Americans in the United States. He and his companions in the movement gained energy from their anger, but the expression of it was shaped by love and a wish to transform not only themselves, but the rest of society as well. We, too, can make use of those passionate feelings as we engage any of the work that carries on the flame of King’s vision for a better world. Seeking racial justice, economic justice, reform of the whole system of prisons and courts all require the spark of energy to push us into action.

We don’t want to turn to hatred. As King noted, it’s too great a burden. But that which gives us power to move and make a change – anger or love or whatever it is a different matter entirely.

Linda