During our trip to Boston last week, we visited many historical UU sights and connected with the Coming Of Age group from First Unitarian Church in Dallas with whom we traveled. As well as learning about UU history, we had the opportunity to learn about the history of Boston and America at large. When we traveled to the Old Manse in Concord-- the home of influential transcendentalists such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. We learned about the first battle of the Revolutionary War at a nearby bridge from a local park ranger.
On our first day, we took a trip on an amphibious vehicle where we learned about the general history of Boston, such the fact that a significant part of Boston is built on landfill. On our second day we visited Arlington Street Church (the first Unitarian church and where William Ellery Channing was the minister) and Harvard Divinity School (the location of one of Emerson's most influential speeches). Locations like these were integral to the experience, helping us connect obscure names to actual buildings, pulpits, and rooms, where the stories we had learned previously in our Coming Of Age class began to come to life.On our third day we traveled to Concord by bus to visit the Sleepy Hollow cemetery (the final resting place of prominent transcendentalists such as Elizabeth Peabody, the founder of the first kindergarten in America, and Henry D. Thoreau). We also visited Walden Pond, where Thoreau wrote his famous book Walden. Myself and many others found this location to be especially spiritual; the quiet and beautiful surroundings along with readings by Rev. Aaron White of the Dallas congregation connected us deeply with Walden’s central idea of simple living and a higher power in nature.
The following day we walked to King’s Chapel and went on the “Bells and Bones” tour where we saw their 325 year old crypt and climbed into the bell tower to see the bell that was recast by Paul Revere in 1814. Later that day, we enjoyed seeing whales on a whale watching ship east of Cape Cod bay and returned to see The Blue Man Group, a fast paced musical performance art, which is an experience I’ll never forget.
On our fifth day we attended a Pride worship service at Arlington Street Church where we sang along with the UU community of downtown Boston and watched the Pride parade afterwards outside of the church. It was a very special experience to see such an inclusive and supportive event on such a large scale; this is something I hope to see in Texas in the future. After the parade we were afforded a few hours of free time, so Tesa Morin, students from the Denton group, and I went to Beacon Hill and visited picturesque Acorn Street.
On our final day in Boston on Sunday, we returned to King’s Chapel to attend service, which was an especially unique experience. Although the church is affiliated with the UUA, the worship service is quite different from ours. The service included Psalms and readings from the Common Book of Prayer in its original Shakespearean-like form and an inspirational sermon on social action and justice. Even though it was a foreign experience, I enjoyed it and learned a great deal. I think this acceptance of learning from many different traditions and practices of other religions is one of the greatest parts of being Unitarian Universalist.I know that myself and many others have been changed by this trip; we have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a UU in this world. Connections have been made that are only possible with this firsthand look at the hearth and birthplace of Unitarian Universalism. I hope that future generations in this church can experience this too, because it is so incredibly important to understand what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist in an historical context.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the support and donations from the congregation. We are thankful to those that guided us in our fundraising, those that bought shirts, many who donated so that all of us could go on this trip, to our mentors, and to our teachers Pam and Tesa. We are thankful for their time, mentoring, guidance, and energy as they helped us to grow spiritually. On the behalf of the CoA group, I would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the congregation for providing this experience for us. We thank you.
With gratitude,
Gabriel Morgan
