Cell:	802-384-5002
Home:	802-885-1944
E-mail:	billstephnelson@vermontel.net

 

The Rev. William E. Nelson began his ministry with KUUF on September 7th , 2008.  Bill presides at worship services on the first and third Sundays of each month, with the second and fourth Sundays led by Assisting Ministers George Peterson and the Rev. Dick Dutton, respectively.  A typical week will find Bill in the Andover/New London area at least one day per week, with additional days as needed. 

Bill “retired” in 2007 from his ministry in the United Church of Christ, and is currently seeking plural standing in the Unitarian Universalist Association.  This is actually a kind of return to his early ministry, when, while in seminary at Vanderbilt University, he was preparing for ministry in the UUA, and serving as Student Minister at a UU church in Nashville, Tennessee.  Throughout his career in the UCC, Bill has maintained strong relationships with his UU colleagues, and has served as guest minister at several UU churches.   

Bill and his wife Stephanie, both natives of Cleveland, Ohio, have lived “across the river” from us in Vermont, for the past eleven years, where they share their home with Hubbard, their rescued greyhound dog, and Paws, their twenty-year-old cat.  Bill is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, with a degree in Sociology and Anthropology, and, as mentioned above, of the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University.  Among his many interests Bill includes a passion for art (particularly Modern Art), classical music, and literature, as well as occasional travel, primarily to art venues around the country and abroad. 

As would be expected in a UU setting, Bill’s approach to religion is open and inclusive.  He has great respect for each individual’s spiritual path, and an intense interest in exploring just what it is that contributes to our becoming true human beings.  He describes himself, in fact, as a kind of “humanist with spiritual overtones and transcendental tendencies,” all blended together into a “genuine appreciation of, and gratitude for, the many and diverse challenges of being human.”

 

A User’s Guide to the Minister

A close friend of mine from seminary days, who currently serves a UU congregation in New Jersey, has recently published in his newsletter a “User’s Guide to the Minister.”  Actually, he borrowed the idea from another UU minister, and I thought it was a fine idea, so I’ve come up with a version of my own:

 

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January thaw is dazzling but it lasts only a moment.  If this

were January in England, we would expect crocuses and snow-

drops soon; here we know enough to expect replacement

battalions of snow’s troopers following on coldness that freezes

the melt, covering it with foot upon foot of furry whiteness

and moon-coldness. . . . High sailing above, higher than it has

a right to, bigger, the February full moon, huge disc of cold,

rides and slides among tatters of cloud.

–Donald Hall, Seasons at Eagle Pond

Back in the 1970s, Stephanie and I lived for four years in Nashville, Tennessee.  In each of those four years, on the first day of February, as if they’d been counting down the days on little subterranean calendars, our crocuses roused themselves from their winter sleep to greet us with their hardy green leaves that, within days, would produce the flowers that announced the coming of spring. 

February’s arrival in Northern New England is a little different from how it’s experienced in Middle Tennessee.  It’s definitely still winter here.  And it’s going to be winter for a while, probably well beyond March 21st’s declaration of a new season.  Spring will come, eventually, but meanwhile, we can enjoy what winter has to offer, knowing that February, as wintry as it can be, is still a month of transition. 

It’s a month of transition inasmuch as the Holidays are well behind us, we’ve survived January’s post-Holiday adjustment, and now there’s nothing much to do but wait.  February, of course, has its observances, namely Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day; and skiers, skaters, and folks who snowshoe will know a kind of paradise. But mainly, at least in my mind, February bids us enter into the soft, glowing living rooms of our collective memory or imagination – a little music in the background, a Christmas-present book, perhaps a cup of some warming beverage on the side table, with loved-ones and pets close by.  No television.  Peaceful. 

Yes, the world and its troubles will still be outside our windows.  Haiti’s earthquake, as well as unthinkable acts of terrorist violence, high unemployment, squabbling in Congress – all these things won’t go away, and we won’t forget.  We can’t forget; for forgetting is not an option.  The secret of winter’s peace is not one of isolation from the world, but rather of venturing deep into our selves and finding there the strength to live our lives with an integrity and a renewed vigor that befits our calling as people of faith and hope.  The idyllic, warmly-glowing living room is not a place of escape, but of renewal – of taking the time, in the quiet of a winter’s night, to get to know our selves better and, in that knowledge, to discern the path before us as human beings who matter, and who care, and who celebrate that mattering and that caring in all that we do, including being part of our KUUF – Where I’ll be looking for you.

With Best Wishes for a peace-filled February,
Bill