Dear WES,

How wonderful it was to meet so many of you on Sunday! I am so excited to be joining you as your clergy intern. Over the next two years, I will be with you half-time as I continue my studies to become a Unitarian Universalist minister through Meadville Lombard Theological School. I look forward to getting to know you, and to learning from you and with you over our time together. I am so eager to learn more about Ethical Culture and about this community.  

I love a great many poems, but perhaps my favorite is “Say Yes” by spoken word poet, Andrea Gibson. For me, the poem is about saying yes to a calling, to life, and to community. For me, it is about becoming our truest self and about bringing what we need to give to the world. Perhaps it is unsurprising that this poem has been the refrain of my call to religious leadership.  

The story of this calling can go several ways. 

In one version, I am 12 years old, listening to a sermon at the local Unitarian Universalist church. I don’t remember the topic of the sermon, but I remember the minister playing a recording of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.” Woah, I thought. He can do that? This is “church!?” Huh. I wonder if I could do that.

In another version, I’m 18-years-old and working with a theater-based therapy group performing for young adults with physical and developmental disabilities. Through mime, touch, and music, I learned to be fully present, to be trusted with others’ vulnerability, and to open myself to learning profound ways of being with and relating to others. Through ritual, community, and connection, I was able to open to the many beautiful, deep, and profound ways of being human.  

I frequently tell the story of when I was 24 years old, working as Youth Director for a Unitarian Universalist congregation. I was about halfway through the dissertation for my doctorate in psychology when the Director of Religious Education said, “You know you’re going to be a minister one day, right?” I protested – vehemently – but a small voice inside me said, “…oh shoot.” In my heart, I knew she was right. 

At first, this “calling” didn’t feel so much like a “call,” but like a persistent, annoying itch. As time went by, religious leadership felt more like something I must do. It’s as if there has been a string in my heart pulling me down this road and, while I could have tried to stand still and dig in my heels, it would have been at a price: I would have been torn to pieces.
Gibson’s poem starts with the lines: “When two violins are placed in a room / if a chord on one violin is struck / the other violin will sound that note. If this is your definition of hope, this is for you.”

And this, more than anything, describes my call to clergy leadership. When I bring myself fully to a space – when I listen deeply in a way that opens my heart and my body, and when I speak what I know to be true – there is a resonance that occurs. When we play the truest chords of our hearts, there is resonance in the people around us. This is what I see you doing here at WES: through your community, your justice-building, and your intentional engagement with what matters most, you are making music that resonates and changes individuals, the community, and the world. It creates a hope that ripples out, through the community, and into everything around us. 
“The world needs us right now more than it ever has before,” the poet writes. “Pull all your strings. Play every chord. …Play loud.” I am so honored to be joining your community of committed, justice-seeking, conscientious people. 

My violin is waiting to vibrate to your notes. Play loud.  

In anticipation of beautiful music to come,

Laura Solomon

Clergy Intern

lauras@ethicalsociety.org