As my departure letter stated, my last day of ministry with you is approaching, May 11.  In the coming weeks there will be many goodbyes...we may even tire of saying goodbye to one another.  By the end we may be wondering, “Aren’t you gone yet?!”  Friday May 5 in the evening will be a gratitude for ministry event in which Tom Goldsmith will be honored for his 30 years of service with you along with my two years.  Sunday, May 7 will be my last Sunday service with you.

One of the most enduring images for my ministry comes from “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  This tale about a pilot who has crash-landed in the desert and befriends a childlike interstellar traveller includes a vignette in which the Little Prince befriends a fox.  The fox asks the Prince to tame him, explaining that to tame means “to establish ties.”  “Once you have tamed me,” says the fox, “I shall know your steps as different from all others.  And the wheat-fields, which before meant nothing to me, shall remind me of you, for they are the color of your hair.  Before I had no use for wheat, for I am a fox.  But once you have tamed me they shall bring me back to you.”  When the time comes for the fox and Prince to part the fox cries, and the Prince exclaims, “But you asked me to tame you!  And now you are sad.  It was for nothing.”  “No, not for nothing,” replies the fox, “for now I have the wheat fields.”

I have loved this notion and carried it close to my heart throughout my ministries in congregations, hospitals and summer camps, with youth, elders, families, individuals, staff and volunteers.  It poignantly communicates the power of relationships, how they connect us and how we carry pieces of them with us wherever we travel, or wherever we remain.  In many powerful ways I feel as though I am made up of the pieces and relationships I carry with me from where I have been before, by those with whom I have engaged in a mutual taming process.

Thank you for taming me, Friends.  Thank you for showing up faithfully, along with me, for the ministry of this faith and this congregation.  Thank you for inviting me into your lives and the life of this community.  It has been a joy to be in The Work with you...the work of “nurturing and challenging spiritual and intellectual growth...actively engaging in building and progressive and just community.”

The Work, of course, continues, though we will be doing it in different ways and in separate places.  As my work shifts to hospital chaplaincy in Vancouver, Washington, I will turn my attention and energies there.  Though you remain in my heart I will refrain from engaging you so that you and I will have time and space to build new relationships for vibrant, powerful ministries.  I wish you all the best in your new ministry with my successor, once they are secured.  They will benefit from your focus and welcome.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith and ministry ethics ask that ministers and congregations refrain from contact for a period of at least a year after leavetaking occurs.  This helps ensure success of the ministers and ministries that follow.  Please know that my silence is an expression of respect - for you, for this future ministry and for the movement we share which is so deeply and desperately needed in the world today.  Please know, too, that Tom Goldsmith and I will continue to be in touch as colleagues and friends and that I will be available to staff if there are resources, connections or dangling threads that need completion and tying off.  Tom will be aware of my whereabouts and how to contact me.  Though I will not “unfriend” you on social I will also not seek you out and will not discuss church business.

Thank you for the wheatfields, my friends - in this case, the mountains, desert, red rock, bright sun, Jazz Vespers, Art Festival, Winter Solstice, Coming of Age...and all the unique things that make up this community of First Church and Salt Lake City.

In the words of the poet, ee cummings, who was raised a Unitarian and schooled at Harvard:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I’ll be seeing you around this UU world we share.

Here’s to The Work,

Friends!Peace, Faith & Passion,

Matthew

More from Matthew

First Church Orientation Session - Tuesday, May 9, 7-9 p.m. - New to First Church or Unitarian Universalism?  Wondering what you can expect or what the church expects of you?  Join Revs. Tom Goldsmith and Matthew Cockrum along with other newcomers and church leaders for this orientation.  Childcare available.  Reservations required.  Please reserve your spot via e-mail () or phone (801.582.8687 ext. 205) with names and contact info of those attending along with names and ages of children needing childcare.