Sunny Notes: 03.18.26 - A Continuing Relationship

In August 2025, I began my Year-Long Transitional Ministry Training course, a mandatory course for any UU minister who wishes to do interim or transitional ministry within a congregation. It is hard to believe, but after learning alongsideabout 30 other ministers for almost nine months, we are fast approaching our "graduation" in May. For our final assignment, this week I will be doing a "Capstone Presentation" to the class, where I will highlight how I have implemented or integrated some aspect of my learning from the course into practice in my ministry setting. 

As I am reviewing my course notes to create my presentation, again and again I am coming across content and reminders about the importance of relationship. Yes, there is work to be done during transitional ministry, but before that work can even begin, trust needs to be established, stories need to be shared, individuals need to be known, congregational history needs to be heard. I am deeply grateful for all that you—as individuals and as a congregation—have shared with me so far; I am deeply grateful for the warm welcome I have received since arriving in October; and I am so deeply grateful for the opportunity to continue our ministerial relationship for another two years (as BUF Board President, Lin Skavhahl, confirmed during the Sunday service on March 8, we have extended my contract through July 2028)! 

As we embark on the next two years together, I will close this week's column with a poem on relationship that I came across this morning in my class notes—drawing from Rev. Browne’s words, may we at BUF continue to reach out to one another, offering love and nurturing care, while joining together in celebration of the interdependence of our lives. 

Co-regulation 

By Rev. Elizabeth Barish Browne (they/them) 

From our very first breath, we reach out 

Co-regulation, not self-regulation, is in our nature. 

We find our cues from the sun and the moon, 

From each parent and caregiver, 

We find our place in this great turning planet, 

By turning to one another, 

Generation to generation, 

We awaken to the dawn, and fall asleep at the evening’s end. 

Our life's journey is part of something greater, 

Something simple, 

Something divine. 

A flame cannot be lit without a spark, 

A life cannot begin without the air, 

And we cannot begin to find ourselves without love. 

May we reach out to one another, 

May we offer love and nurturing care,

May we join together in celebration of the interdependence of our lives.

— Sunny, minister