Life offers us countless invitations to meaningful relationships, and these invitations are always before us. But while we yearn for people who offer us a genuine welcome, attention, affirmation, and affection, getting to know one another doesn’t just happen, it takes intention and risk. To find the meaningful, we have to open ourselves to the possible, to accept the invitation that is awaiting us. Lay leader: Anne Cohen.

Mary, a UUA Affiliate Minister, is a humanist clergy leader with the American Ethical Union, an ethical and religious movement founded in 1876. She served the Washington Ethical Society as its Leader (Minister) for Congregational Life and has been a member of the movement since 1980.