This Land, Rev. Josh Pawelek (with assistance from Cory Clark, Janet Heller and Jane Osborn), May 3, 2026
- Rev. Josh Pawelek
- 5 hours ago
- 8 min read
At our Earth Day service two weeks ago I said it is always a worthwhile exercise to reflect on what it means to have a place in the interdependent web of all existence. I then said that such contemplation can, at times, lead us into that kind of spiritual or mystical experience in which all the borders and the boundaries between us and everything else melt away, ebb, fade, disappear, revealing in their wake an endless, crisscrossing multitude of connections, of relationships, of mutual dependencies, a sense of the oneness of everything, a sense of the strange but real bonds that unite everything to everything, which leads us to offer grace for everything, which was the title of that sermon.[1]
This morning I am proposing a different, though related and equally worthwhile exercise, a reflection on what it means to have a highly specific, physical place in the interdependent web of all existence; and more to the point, what it means for us, as a congregation, to have and to care for these four particular acres, sloping gently eastward, down from the top of what I’ve always known as Elm Hill, where Manchester’s northeast corner abuts the Talcottville area of Vernon, where an ancient spring lies hidden in our woods, overflowing in springtime and feeding a pond just beyond edge of our property, whose exit streams eventually empty into the Hockanum River far below us.
What does it mean to have this land, which is also home to turtles, owls, woodpeckers, squirrels, a variety of pollinators, wild turkeys, deer, at least one woodchuck which I saw running across the parking lot on Tuesday morning, thousands of other birds (though many are just passing through), the occasional neighbor cat, the occasional teenage humans parking in our lot after hours, and monarch butterflies who, if I have my facts correct, will be arriving over the next month for their summer stay?
What does it mean to have this land which is best by invasive species whose presence, over time, weakens otherwise hearty trees, which explains why a number of them fell in the northeastern section of our woods during the last major ice storm?
What does it mean to have this land, which is home to a beautiful, peaceful memorial garden, a final resting place for so many of our deceased loved-ones, our congregational ancestors, a truly sacred site?
What does it mean to have this land, whose constant 55° temperature 500 feet below the surface, heats a glycol solution which we then use for heating and cooling our meeting house?
What does it mean to have this land?
I invite you to take a brief, quiet moment to reflect on your relationship to these four, gently sloping acres at 153 Vernon St. West in Manchester.
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Today we welcome new members into our congregation. As we conduct our welcoming ritual, we offer a very specific invitation to the new members. We invite them “to share in our mission of 1) caring for one another, 2) encouraging each other in spiritual growth, 3) working for justice and peace in the wider community, and 4) living in harmony with the earth.” All of you who are members of this congregation received some version of this invitation when you officially joined.
As your minister, I think a lot about what it means to be a member of the congregation. I try to articulate that meaning on Sunday mornings from time to time, but I find I articulate it most elaborately at the Introduction to Unitarian Universalism class which we hold 3-4 times a year. In that class I say things like, members have the responsibility to attend and vote at congregational meetings. Members can be elected to one of our many leadership roles. Members make the most generous financial gift possible to the Annual Appeal. Members receive care from each other when they need care; and members also provide care to each other as needs arise (that’s part 1 of the invitation). Members explore opportunities for spiritual growth together through participation in Sunday Services, small group ministry, affinity groups, and religious education offerings (that’s part 2 of the invitation). Members participate as they can in our organizing for social and environmental justice and peace-making in the wider community (that’s part 3 of the invitation.) Part 4 of the invitation is living in harmony with the earth. I confess, I probably say the least about this facet of membership.
How do we live in harmony with the earth? There are thousands of ways to pursue it, and so many of us practice various ways in our daily living. But how do you, the members and friends of this congregation, collectively live in harmony with the earth? You have this particular tract of land, these four gently sloping acres. Maybe the new member invitation needs more specificity. Maybe it should be an invitation to live in harmony with this land; to faithfully steward this land; to compassionately care for this land. Perhaps this is obvious. But this is my message on this day when we welcome new members: Being a member of this congregation includes endeavoring as best we can to live in harmony with this particular patch of earth. Being a member of this congregation includes caring for this land.
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There’s a lot we don’t know about this land. We’re confident we follow a long line of stewards, though we don’t have much information about who our predecessors were. We know these woods are relatively new. We suspect, like much of New England, this was pastureland in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before most of the houses were built in the neighborhood. That may be why someone laid stones around the spring—a place for the animals to drink. Though some have argued those stones may have been placed earlier, either by the Podunks or Wangunks who hunted and fished on these lands for centuries prior to the arrival of European colonists, and whose predecessors began inhabiting these lands between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago. We find the remains of old stone walls on this land. Old trails. There’s a very old apple tree out there, though our building manager, Jane Osborn, says she’s never seen it bloom. At one point there was a piece of barbed wire buried in an old tree, though I’m pretty sure that tree was removed to make way for this building. These are all clues about who lived in harmony with this land before our time.
A lot has changed during the time I’ve been serving as your minister. Most notably, this sanctuary wasn’t here when I started in 2003. The chapel and classrooms below us weren’t here. There was a wide grassy space between the building and the memorial garden that we sometimes used for outdoor picnics and celebrations, as well as children’s programming in the warm seasons. The congregation threw a party out there for my family in 2006 when our son Max was born. At one point Janet Heller and our former Director of Religious Education, Vicki Merriam, started the first children’s organic vegetable garden in that space.
In the mid-2000s, we went through a multi-year process of becoming an official Unitarian Universalist Association Green Sanctuary. During that time we learned a lot about how to better care for the land by planting native species, removing invasive species, composting, and using various organic farming techniques in our gardens.
Our building project in 2009 and 2010 was disruptive to the land. Around that time we created an Ecological Landscaping Team whose task was to relandscape the areas disturbed by the building project. At that time we also relocated the children’s organic vegetable garden to its current location by the south entrance to the meeting house. We used wood from dead cedar trees to make the beds, fed the soil with our own compost, and watered the beds with rain water captured in rain barrels. That garden has gone through a variety of changes over the years. Mary Lawrence managed it as an organic garden for a number of years, naming it the Peas and Love Community Garden. In recent years we’ve planted more native pollinators than veggies, but an herb garden remains, and everyone is welcome to pick from it. This spring the Children and Youth Ministry program will be planting veggies in a few of the beds.
These are examples of how the land in the vicinity of the building has changed. But there are changes out in the woods too. Of course, there are a lot of invasive species that weren’t there 50 years ago, and a lot of the work that needs doing involves clipping the invasives before they reproduce. Clipping is easier and less labor-intensive than trying to pull them out by their roots. But it’s not all about invasives. Cory Clark pointed out that some wooded areas are now more open, in part because trees have fallen as a result of weakening from the presence of invasives. In that more open space, Cory and others have been asking, what could the next growth be? Some have suggested an edible forest. Can we plant orchard trees, apples and pears? Can we plant berry bushes? Could we, in time, develop a small, sustainable road-side food ministry? Pick-your-own apples? Pick-your-own blueberries?
That’s in the future. There are more immediate tasks today. And I mean TODAY we will be planting native plants and berry bushes on the grounds. If you would like to help, Cory Clark will guide you to the areas we have prepared. Tools will be provided.
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Finally, I asked, what does it mean to have this land? I struggle with this language, and I’m sure some of you struggle with it too, because “having” implies possession. Yet this land ultimately doesn’t belong to us. In a spiritual sense, we don’t have it at all. We are a part of it, a partner with it, a recipient of its gifts. Spiritually speaking, it may be more accurate to say the land has us. We are, at most, temporary stewards, like all those who have come before us.
Yet, I decided to ask the question this way—what does it mean to have this land?—because, legally, the members of this congregation quite literally have this land. We own it. We are responsible for it. That’s the nature of the land-owning system we inherit from the European colonists who brought it with them in the 17th and 18th centuries. This ownership systems is one of the primary reasons the earth is in so much trouble today. Land has become a commodity to be exploited, its riches extracted, its ecosystems polluted. Too often, land ownership grants the owner the license to destroy it for the sake of financial gain. As we reflect on what it means to have this land, let us be mindful of what so often happens to land that humans have. Let us endeavor not to exploit this land, not to abuse this land, not to neglect this land, but to be good stewards, to keep it healthy and fertile, thriving and beautiful, trusting that as much as we have it, it has us; trusting, if nothing else, that when we take care of this land, when we take care of these four gently sloping acres on Elm Hill, here on the Manchester-Vernon line, it feels good.
Amen and blessed be.
[1] Pawelek, Josh, “Grace for Everything,” a sermon delivered to the UU Society East, Manchester, CT, April 19, 2026. See: https://www.uuse.org/post/grace-for-everything-a-sermon-for-earth-day-rev-josh-pawelek-april-19-2026.
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