Forrest Church, a much beloved Unitarian Universalist minister at All Souls in New York City, author, and theologian, died this past September 24. Church knew he was dying of cancer and his final book, Love and Death, published in February 2009 summed up his work and thoughts on this topic.
In it, Church writes that, “religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die...Knowing we must die, we question what life means. The answers we arrive at may not be religious answers, but the questions death forces us to ask are, at heart, religious questions: Where did I come from? Who am I? Where am I going? What is life's purpose? What does all this signify?"
I write and ponder all this not just as a human being grappling with these mysteries but as a religious educator wondering, how do we hold this up to our children? What do we say? What do we offer at First Unitarian Society Schenectady?
