Minister Andy Jacobs

Rev. Andy Jacobs, on his ordination day, May 19th, 2019, stands before a stained glass created by Kirk Mackey depicting the UUA Seven Principles.

Our Minister speaks to the congregation every other Sunday. His words reflect on the miracle of compassion and how we can better integrate empathy and compassionate actions in our lives. A graduate of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Andy also participates in art as community outreach, works in Norman as a tattoo artist, and grows in family with his wife and two children every day.

Blog Entry: 5/12/2020

I was hoping to talk about the active effort our congregation puts forth to invite “whoever you are” to join us in growth and contemplation, but, I came across this reflection by Christiana McQuain, from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett and she does it better.

The title of her reflection, Come, Come, Whoever You are: Broken Vows, hits on her theme right away. The original poem by the Sufi teacher and poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, has a line removed from our UU hymn. The line, “Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times,” lets us all know that we are welcome, regardless of our brokenness.

McQuain goes on to ask, “What if we are welcoming both the friend and the stranger, regardless of our own imperfection.” And this is why I recommend reading her reflection, because she addresses the need to be welcoming as part of addressing our own insecurities. It is not a long reflection, but it gently encourages standing together in pursuit of our congregational vows as they pertain to the seven principles, even when our neighbors and ourselves fall short of those principles.

In as an example of this flawed host and guest hospitality, I leave you with this poem by Mary Oliver, Singapore:

In Singapore, in the airport,

A darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together,
and neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor,
which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as hubcaps,
with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop and
fly down to the river.
This probably won’t happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life. I mean
the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
The way her smile was only for my sake; I mean