REFLECTION ON BRIDGING
On Sunday morning at the CUC Symposium on Spiritual Leadership (May 20, 2012), our minister, Rev. Diane Rollert, was one of our service leaders, and she orchestrated a wonderful Bridging ceremony as a part of our very multigenerational weekend. This special UU ritual is a time for aging-out Junior or Senior youth to go through a series of two person arches, formed by the older youth or Young Adults who welcome them to the next stage of their lives. Usually the “bridge’ consists of perhaps five, ten or fifteen pairs, arms upraised, and after the Bridgers traverse this passageway, accompanied by a song or music, there are lots of hugs and smiles from the bridge builders for those who passed under their arms.
For our special Symposium bridge, however, there were many more bodies to build with, and Diane also added further dimensions. FIrst, she asked people to wait til after the service for congratulations and hugs, so that bridgers could focus on their transition more strongly, and we all could beam our support to them. Then she called up all the youth and young adults who were not at the age-end of a stage in their lives, therefore not bridging, to come form a bridge line down the middle of our temporary sanctuary -- I am guessing there were 50 or 60 youth and young adults altogether (it was a loooong bridge!). She directed them to stay standing with arms extended for far more bridgers than most of us had ever thought of, and it was a very moving rite of passage!
After the Junior and Senior youth bridged, those circa-35-year-olds ready to move on into “adulthood beyond” were called to go through, while the congregation kept singing Tony Turner’s wonderful song --the one we will be singing during the service on Sunday, May 27th -- “Circle of Song.”
Next lay leaders who were beginning or ending a role in their congregations were invited to bridge; then staff of all our congregations and of the CUC itself, who are moving to some new role or place, passed through the long bridging line. (There was heartache for the three CUC employees whose positions have had to be cut due to financial constraints).
FInally, anyone in the entire room who felt they were changing in some way they wanted to mark (in our world of constant change), was invited forward. Suddenly I found myself on my feet, in the line of bridgers, and I walked under/through all those caring arms with tears streaming down my face, because I realized I am personally experiencing my own sense of moving to a new stage of being: I am learning to make better boundaries and say a firmer “yes” or “no” in my life than ever before, and it is h-a-a-a-r-r-d. And so I bridged, and felt symbolically better --plus sensed so much support surrounding me!
Life does have a way of returning to normal after such moments of insight or epiphany as this was, and our sense of transformation often dulls, needs to be renewed again, but the ceremonial way in which I bridged, along with many others, was a spiritual moment I will treasure. My new boundary-defining practice may sometimes feel just ordinary, but the community was my witness, and we shared an extra-ordinary process.
In terms of Bridging at our own congregation, we have plenty of Young Adult attenders, and could encourage them have a yearly Bridging, but I --sadly, as I would love to cover the whole cradle to sage spectrum -- am not a Director of Lifespan Learning, but only of the nursery, children and youth programs that comprise “religious education” at present at UCM. However, I am longing for more critical mass in our youth group so that there could be enough bodies to actually hold such a ceremony with them. It’s a powerful tool and one that is a part of many UU youths’ lives -- I want it to be so for our youth, too!
