In this season of highlighting our gratitude, I’m thankful for the Rutland County Interfaith Council, of which I am privileged to be a regular participant.

We are a group of faith community servant-leaders who gather nearly every month for a couple of hours. Each of us is invited to bring our own lunch, and the hosting member provides beverage and something sweet or snacky to share. Around this table come together a local Rabbi, Imam, and Pastors from the Methodist, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, UCC, Baptist, Lutheran, Non-denominational, and Community churches. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone, but really any clergy from any worshiping group is welcome.

The conversation is never boring. It’s a safe space for sharing our struggles, joys, and hopes as people who care deeply about our communities and who have different perspectives and experiences, speaking from various diverse vantage points along our sacred journeys. We support each other, learn about other faith traditions, and hatch plans together for making Rutland County a better place to live — for everyone.

You can imagine what happens when we share a table in this way. We discover things… such as how we are all beautifully unique, yet we have so much in common. We hear our shared concerns, fears, hopes, and dreams and we celebrate together some recognizable triumphs and insights from our personal spiritual lives and from our faith families. We and our distinct individual faith communities have so much to offer this world — and we are better together. Conversation and connection, friendship and mutual education toward full and happy lives, seem to be part of the pervading goodness of Divine design.

I’m so grateful that in our own United Church of Christ, we celebrate diversity of faith expression, which means that as a UCC minister, I get to be friends and colleagues with an interfaith crowd. My faith and experience as a Christian are certainly richly enhanced and deepened by my ongoing connections with people of other traditions and beliefs. I passionately believe that Rutland and the world are made better by these relationships of openness and understanding.

My Aunt Thelma told us years ago about the days of her childhood when the families on her street did not mix across sectarian lines; in other words the Methodists didn’t talk to the Baptists and the Episcopalians didn’t mingle much with the Congregationalists, even a few houses down the sidewalk. She was very pleased to see progress in her day toward tolerance and unity, and I think she would be very proud and admiring of our simple lunch and conversation with the Interfaith Council of Rutland County. Thanks be to God, who made us all!

By the way, you and your family are warmly invited to this year’s

Rutland County Interfaith
Thanksgiving Service

Tuesday, November 25 at 7:00 pm
at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church –
First Baptist Church
6 Church Hill Road, Rutland VT

Blessings — Terry