Our congregation has voted overwhelmingly to call Seth Carrier as our new settled minister. Seth and Elizabeth, we welcome you to the UUCM family!

Images and words about the two Chechnyan brothers who used homemade bombs to kill three people and wound many more at this year's famed Boston Marathon have crowded our minds and hearts in the days since the tragedy. We have reached out in prayer and empathy to those maimed and injured, to the families of those senselessly killed, to the city of Boston itself, gripped in trauma for so many days.

Boston is the national headquarters of my denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the finish line of the marathon, where the bombs were planted, is only a few blocks from our building. Denomination President Peter Morales reached out quickly with a pastoral response. At that time, he wrote "At this time we do not know who did this or what twisted thinking produced this horrific act. We do know this: everything we do to spread compassion, understanding, acceptance, and peace matters. It is literally a matter of life and death." We now know the identities of the perpetrators.