Unitarian Universalists: December 2006 Archives

Yesterday, we remembered Marjorie's life in a memorial service at Community Church of New York. Marjorie would be pleased, she planned the music and designated certain people to speak and hinted at what they might want to speak about. Below was her draft.

When Community Church was chosen we made it more concrete. Thanks to so many who made it possible.

Order of Service

Prelude

Come Sunday, Edward "Duke" Ellington
Sylvia Wells, piano; Lloyd Goldstein ~ double bass

Chalice Lighting

Invocation

The 23rd Psalm, Jubilee Singers
arranged by Cissy Houston, degenderized by Bobby McFerrin

Opening Words

[why we are here €¦ include reading of Maya Angelou's "Spirit"]

Responsive Reading €" "We Need One Another"

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.

We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.

We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.

We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.

We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.

George E. Odell

Hymn 123, Spirit of Life

Obituary (read in silence)

Everything Must Change, Quincy Jones

Reading

Let Me Die Laughing, Mark Morrison-Reed

Solo

Eternal Life, Olive Dungan, arr.

Eulogy

Rev. Rob Hardies / Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt

Tributes

Family - Talibah (aka Tonya Edmonds) and Marcus Alan Wells
and Clyde Elliot Grubbs

Solo

Precious Lord, Thomas A. Dorsey

Tributes

A Time of Silence

Musical Meditation

Don't Cry for Me, CeCe Winans

Benediction
Postlude - Claire de Lune, Claude Debussy

Boston's Arlington Street was not my first church experience. I didn't begin to attend Arlington Street until I was nineteen. I had been part of at least four Unitarian churches before that, not counting the one I was christened in. But in those churches I was always Clyde and May's son Clyde Elliot.

Arlington Street was a place where no one knew my parents, and I was one of the young people. Jack Mendelson was minister then. I was not a loyalist. I went to King's Chapel, First Church and Charles Street Meeting House. When I went to San Francisco to finish to college, I went to the Bay area UU churches. When I came back to Massachusetts in 1965 to go Crane Theological School I did my student ministry at Second Church of Boston up in the Fenway.

But I always came back to Arlington Street when I had to think about my life. I first made the decision to go into the ministry there sitting in a pew. It was sitting in that same pew that i decided to leave theological school in 1966 and throw myself into trying to stop the Vietnam war. When I became disillusioned with the leadership of the Unitarian Universalist Association during the Black Empowerment Struggle in 1969 and 1970, I found folks at Arlington Street who agreed with me, and was able to "keep the faith" despite my anger with those who we had designated to lead us. For years I travelled as an organizer, kept myself busy as a justice advocate, and experienced that Arlington Street was there when I had a free Sunday, when I needed to touch base with that childhood faith that kept calling me home.

Finally it was at Arlington Street all most twenty years ago now that I again felt the call to become a Unitarian Universalist minister. At the time, I had so many commitments and it seemed totally out of the question, so many people depended on me. But I was yearning for a way to combine my commitment to social justice and peace with a spiritual understanding. I read for a few years, trying to reconnect with the theological and religious studies that I had given up as irrelevant in the late 60s when the realities of war and racism confronted my liberal faith and found it wanting. Over the next years I began to reconstruct a theology, Unitarian in ancient simplicity - bring God's beloved community to realization, it is present and among us, but we do not see it.

It was at Arlington Street where I was ordained. And I have returned at least once a year.

During this last week I have been there three times, twice for public worship and once for a conversation with my home church's minister. Kim Crawford Hardie and I shared stories of Marjorie. I experience myself as a congregant with her, a colleague and peer to be sure, but she is still my minister. It was good to go home.

The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations announces the creation of The Reverend Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley Fund.

"This fund will be used to support Unitarian Universalist congregations and their lay and ordained leaders who are committed to the transformative work of creating inclusive multicultural communities of the spirit."

The UUA web page that is devoted to this fund has information about credit card contributions, snail mail contributions and even transfers of stocks and bonds to the fund.

Grants from the fund will be made with the approval of the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and members of the Bowens-Wheatley family.

For tax purposes: The UUA is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Our federal tax-exempt I.D. number is 04-210-3733. Your donation to the Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley Fund qualifies as a tax deductible charitable gift. Please consult your financial and tax advisors regarding your particular circumstances.