As many of you who know me well are aware, I'm passionate about community. Community building is a challenge I love to sink my teeth into, and this is a huge part of the work that I do here at First Parish. To quote Rev. Terry Sweetser from his address to the Mass Bay District annual meeting on April 11, “we're better together.” He was referring to our congregations linking arms and working together for a stronger denominational future, but I immediately thought of all of the different communities I am part of, and how each of them is richer because we are unique individuals working together. Take my little neighborhood, or my even littler street as an example.

The most amazing thing happened last week. Of the five houses that make up our street, four of them have sold in the four plus years we have lived there, and all of us are thinking about what to do with our front yards, which have had no love for quite awhile. Inspired by a picture of the front yards of an intentional cottage community in Port Townsend, Washington, I wondered aloud at one of our monthly dinners if maybe we neighbors should link arms and think about a connected plan for our front yards. The answer was a resounding yes, and we are now talking excitedly about what all we want to do.

One of my ideas is to make our yards as mow-free as possible, and to create a seating area, probably in our central front yard where neighbors can gather for a friendly cup of morning coffee to read the newspaper and chat. But I couldn't quite picture it. So last week, I dragged two of our backyard Adirondack chairs to the front yard, and took my second cup of coffee and Bill McKibben's latest book, Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (which you MUST read!) out front to get a feel for what a seating area might bring (or not) to the neighborhood. I hadn't even finished a paragraph when I noticed two men ambling up my street from the wooded path to the bike path. They approached me and asked if I lived in the house behind me. I said I did, and stood to introduce myself.

They were brothers: Stuart Chaffee in his midseventies, Warren over eighty. They had grown up on Massachusetts Avenue, just up the block from my street, in the 1940s, and had played with the Mahoney children who had lived in my house at that time. Their memories thrilled and fascinated me. I love local history, and this was about as local as I would ever get! They remembered sledding down the street all the way to the railroad tracks behind my house (now the bike path). They “borrowed” sidelined railroad ties to build forts in the woods, and could still see the remnants of one fort as they came through those woods moments before. My street was a dirt road in the 1940s and they remembered the coal delivery trucks kicking up dust, and a poison ivy edged path winding uphill from the end of the street to Tower Park.

As they stroked my sociable cat, Bear, they remembered that the Mahoney family had owned a lot of cats, too, as well as raised four kids in my house. This was before the addition of the 1960s so it was still a two bedroom house. The Mahoney's one daughter slept in her parents' bedroom with them. Two of the boys shared the second bedroom and a third son slept in the dining room. I imagined that a lot of people lived like that in the 1940s and tried to picture raising my own two sons in our house when it lacked the third bedroom and second bathroom we so enjoy. Lexington has obviously changed dramatically in the past sixty years! While I knew this, of course, to have the Chaffee brothers' vivid story told to me was such a welcome blessing. And I instantly had my answer. We must create a seating area in our front yard to invite more such stories into our collective lives.

Since then, I have taken several more cups of morning coffee out front and welcomed neighbors to sit a spell with me. One neighbor brought over some Hostas for us to plant in our new front yard, and baby Leo from next door stopped by with his dad to show me that he has discovered his tongue. Better together, for sure!

Look for more community building opportunities at church as Peter and I link arms with other staff and all of you to create the beloved First Parish of the future. He and I have already begun conversation about this, and are taking a workshop the district is offering on Thursday. Thank you, by the way, for calling Peter as your next minister. We will definitely be better together!