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Personal & Spiritual Development

Words on the Wind: Fractals and Possibilities

Rev. Jennifer Nordstrom, First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee

Fractals are self-similar patterns repeating at different scales. They pattern our lungs, tree branches and leaves, snowflakes and river routes. Sometimes I think possibilities are like that: random but repeating patterns that flow out of the past moving into a new, but familiar, future.

Other times, I think it is only my mind that binds me to those old patterns, and that possibility is as wide as the horizon over the lake at sunrise, and only unchaining my imagination will give me access to possibility’s wild side.

Other times, I think fractals marry wildness and grow forth in the unfurling beauty of patterned imagination as possibility becoming. What do you think is possible this year? To what wild-dreamings might you open yourself? What fractals patterned imaginings might we build as a community?

This year at First Church, I see possibilities to:

  • Keep growing our multigenerational community, hiring a new Director of Religious Education who will dream with our children, youth, and adults in learning community;
  • Deepen our long congregational commitment to social justice by learning together with our Social Justice Intern how to use the new 10 hours a week of dedicated staff time to social justice;
  • Live into our Ends, learning how to make them real together, including through new projects funded by the Krug bequest;
  • Keep holding all our people as they move through transitions and losses in life, with our new team of Pastoral Care Associates;
  • Connect in our learning and growing community;
  • Welcome you into First Church as a new member;
  • Help you (re)find your place here, connecting in ways that make your heart sing; or
  • Celebrate all the ways you have co-created this community over the all the years of your involvement.

We live in a world of possibilities, wild imaginings, and fractals growing from the past into the future. I look forward to another year in loving community with you.

Love,

Jennifer

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