When I was seven, I joined the Brownies and was thrilled to come home after my first meeting with the assignment of “doing something helpful” so I could turn my Brownie pin right-side up. And as I remember it, it was to be done quietly, maybe even secretly, with the intent of just making the world a better place.

It is a lesson that, obviously, I still remember. As a Unitarian Universalist, it feels like a way of living my values – to care for the interdependent web of life. I often carry an extra bag with me on dog walks so I can pick up litter, especially all the pesky plastic that blows out of people’s recycling bins. When I use the last of the toilet paper in someone else’s bathroom, I find a new roll and replace it so the next person will have a more pleasant experience.

At the time of this writing, we are without a sexton following Robert’s departure, and our very busy building needs our care. Agnes Sesay cleans for us twice a week for three hours each time, and it’s not enough to keep up with the level of use we are now so grateful to support. How can you help? Scan the area around you in the pews for orders of service left behind. (And take your own with you to save or recycle.) You can take out the trash (it goes in the dumpster in the parking lot, and new bags are in the lower kitchen cabinet to the right of the sink.) You can volunteer to clean a bathroom or perhaps vacuum up the fall leaves that are following us into the hallways. This building is our spiritual home, and it is in need of our care. Your care.

And a funny thing happens when you take these tasks upon yourself. You will feel, more deeply than before, that this place belongs to you and you belong to this community.