Skip to main content
It is common practice for Unitarian Universalist ministers and their congregations to include in our Letter of Agreement (contract) provision for a sabbatical every five to seven years, accrued at a rate of one month per year, for up to six months. I’m in my ninth year of service with the UU Fellowship at Stony Brook and last year, finally, I felt the time was right to take a sabbatical. So last winter, January through March, I left my congregation to it’s own good governance, with guest coverage for every service I would have led, and emergency pastoral care coverage by various other UU ministers on our island through an exchange program we formed just for that purpose. I had two aims for the use of my time: a combo solo (with spouse) and group-tour trek down the National and State(s) Civil Rights Trail in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, and a deep immersion into Jewish studies. 

In my pursuit of the dive into Judaism, I joined North Shore Jewish Center’s (NSJC) sixteen week Judaism 101 class, studied Hebrew using a four-volume adult self-study course, did some Israeli dancing with my spouse, attended Shabbat services, and read a bunch of books about Judaism and Israel. I am proud to say that I can now read Hebrew—imperfectly, but well enough to follow the prayers in their original language. And I am so deeply grateful for the kindness and welcome showed to me by my interfaith colleagues at Temple Isaiah and NSJC and members of their congregations. 

This coming spring, March through May, I’ll be taking the second leg of my sabbatical, an immersion into Islam. In March, Linda and I will be traveling to Morocco on a 10-day tour organized and led by Omid Safi, Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. In preparation for that trip, I have already joined a small group of Muslim women who gather weekly at the Selden Masjid (Islamic Association of Long Island) to learn Arabic and the fundamentals of Islam. And what a warm welcome I have received: unquestioning inclusion and generous, heartfelt sharing, encouragement, and support in learning from skilled teachers and ready learners alike, not to mention snacks fresh from an Egyptian bakery! 

This is the world I want to live in: a world of open-armed welcome and generous cultural and religious interchange. A smarter world. A better world. A peaceful world. A loving world. 


Rev. Margie Allen, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Stony Brook

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Make even these days count

One of the most popular features on a local newscast of a small TV station is something rather surprising. It is a feature called- “The Day of the Week”.  Today is…….. Monday!  The station put forth this as a kind of joke at first, but it was so popular that it became a regular daily addition to the morning newscast.  Apparently, so many of us have lost track of what day it is that we need a reminder. During this stay-at-home time, every day seems to blend into the next.  It is truly difficult to remember how many days we have all been quarantined at home, what the date is and what day of the week it is.  Many of us have a few markers that help- jobs that pause for the weekend, celebrations of Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays- special days of worship.  But even with these, the days seem to bleed into each other like a striped shirt washed in hot water. The period that we are in right now in the Jewish calendar is ironically, a time of counting. A time w...

Time

My mind has been thinking about time and how it seems to be different now with all of what is happening. First there is COVID-19 and our stay-in-place semi-lockdown.  For those who have full-time jobs, and even for those who don't, we schedule things around moments in time.  Our lives are routine-based:  when we get up, when we eat, when we work, when we have time for family, when we have time to ourselves, when we sleep, etc.  When our routines are disrupted, many of us feel out of sorts or even lost.  What happened?  Why is this happening?  When is it (routine) coming back?  I've heard that there are many Americans who find it difficult to take a vacation, a real vacation of a week or two, because it takes them away from their work for too long.  As we are gradually allowed to come back to our former lives before COVID-19, perhaps we will have a better sense of time, our old time.  But then again, maybe time will never be the same. ...
I did not want to write about this virus-time. I did not think I could.  Another piece was in my mind this week, not quite yet taking shape. But when I sat to write, the virus took my attention and I could not wrest it back.   There are useful and funny memes online, and stories of good will and good works, and words of inspiration and comfort. And terrible stories, too.  Mostly at a distance, we have been sharing dance and art and music, facts and opinions, cautionary tales and fairy tales. We miss hugs and doing projects and working and learning together in person. Sometimes we are in a bubble for a while that lets us just be, free of anxiety or fear.  Sometimes we cannot get out of bed.  Sometimes we cannot sleep.  Sometimes we eat all the chocolate and sometimes we eat nothing.  We who are privileged live like this.  We are grateful to the people who work at the jobs we need to have done even in t...