Hello ERUUFians!
As we come into August, I wanted to give you a brief summary of our Coming of Age trip to Boston this summer! I’ve left out our travel on Wednesday and Monday and our meals, all of which were their own adventures. But below you will find the major things we did with some comments our youth sent me about each location we visited!
And a special thank you to all who helped fund and support the trip! We could not have done this without your contributions and care.
Thursday, June 27
On Thursday morning, we journeyed across Boston Commons to see where UUA Headquarters used to be at 25 Beacon Street until they sold the space in 2013 to move to a building that was more “in alignment with our mission and values.” After stopping by the former UUA Headquarters, we traveled to UU Urban Ministry, located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. (We would later stop by the new UUA Headquarters building, but also could not go in as it is currently being used to house the houseless in Boston.)
UU Urban Ministry is located at the historic First Church in Roxbury building. First Church was a UU congregation until 1976 when UU Urban Ministry took over the building. Since then, it has focused on supporting the Roxbury neighborhood, often by making connections with neighborhood leaders and organizations and running programming for neighborhood youth. These programs are often funded by UU congregations in the Boston area. We also visited the Dillaway-Thomas House across the street.
These visits brought us some history of the American Unitarians before they were called Unitarians, some of their connections to slavery, references to historial Unitarians, a history of the Roxbury neighborhood, a look at the programs offered by UU Urban Ministry in the neighborhood of Roxbury, and a deeper consideration of how UU communities might be connected to their neighborhoods.
We also visited the Harvard Divinity School Library where they had pulled out some historical documents for us to examine (including some that reference ERUUF!). We also visited the Divinity Hall where Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his Divinity School address, a work that speaks to the importance of our individual experiences and the divine.
Our youth commented that they found seeing the architecture and city structure of so many different periods, both in general and in religious spaces, and how it changed was interesting. They enjoyed the museum at the Dillaway-Thomas House and found the historical documents about Unitarian Universalism interesting to look at. Also, they enjoyed just walking through Boston (and seeing the pigeons).
Friday, June 28
Friday, we began our day with a visit to Arlington Street Church. Rodger, our tour guide, told us a bit about the history of the church and its Tiffany stained-glass windows. He then played the pipe organ for us a bit and took a few brave souls into the bell tower to ring the church bell! We also learned a bit more about William Ellery Channing, a famous Unitarian and one-time minister of Arlington Street Church, and saw his statue across the street from the church building.
We then took a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, a request and interest of our youth. They gave that museum a deep exploration! And we wrapped up our touring for the day by taking the ferry for a walk on the docks and a brief viewing of the USS Constitution.
Our youth thought that Arlington Street Church was the nicest-looking UU church they had seen, and were taken by many aspects of the day: the Tiffany windows, the pipe organ, the bell in the tower, seeing the USS Constitution, the variety of architecture from different time periods, and the span of history and art they witnessed in the museum.
Saturday, June 29
On Saturday, we rented a van and took a trip to Concord! Our first stop was Walden Pond. We had thought about swimming, but the water was high and the weather was a bit chilly. We explored a replica of the (very small) cabin that Henry David Thoreau stayed in while he was at Walden. There was a small museum that discussed the writing of Walden. Our group then trekked around Walden Pond to find the location where Thoreau’s cabin had been. Many people bring stones and leave them in a pile as part of their pilgrimage to this site.
Next was a trip to Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House. We learned about her life and writing and found out more about her family, who were quite progressive for the time. The Orchard House is where Alcott wrote and set her famous novel Little Women.
We wrapped up our trip to Concord at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where we found the graves of four of the people we had heard most about: Emerson, Channing, Thoreau, and Alcott. Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott’s graves all had pencils or other writing implements on their plots that travelers had brought to honor their writing. We also had conversation about remembering how culture shifts when viewing history, bringing to light that while there are historical figures buried in that cemetery, at that time in history, there were many folks who would not have been allowed to be buried there.
The youth noted that visiting Walden Pond brought them calm and a deeper understanding of Thoreau. One commented that they found his dedication to live in a specific way inspiring. They also found inspiration from visiting Alcott’s house (and one who hasn’t read Little Women is putting it on their reading list). A highlight was the artwork in the house done by Louisa May Alcott’s sister, Abigail. Another youth noted how much they liked seeing snippets of both Thoreau and Alcott’s lives. There was also appreciation for how many strings of the trip came together in that cemetery.
Sunday, June 30
On our last full day, we began by attending worship at King’s Chapel. It was a very different worship experience with prayer books and very different music. It had a much more Christian feel than many UU spaces. We also explored their crypt in the basement and their graveyard. We learned about some of the work that King’s Chapel is trying to do in reckoning with their ties to slavery and the slave trade.
We wrapped up the day with a performance by the Blue Man Group, which was robust with music, lights, and splashing paint!
The youth commented the worship was pretty Christian and prayer was more specific, and also King’s Chapel worked to be inclusive in many ways. There was an appreciation for the diversity that UU can encompass and excitement for such a historic building being connected to our UU heritage. They also enjoyed the unpredictability and excitement brought by the Blue Man Group performance!
Thank you for taking this journey with us and hope we can give you a summary of a future trip in the years to come!
