Moderator's Memos

Here is this week’s Memo from Moderator David Grimsted, continuing his exploration of our church’s Puritan roots.

Anne Bradstreet’s three most intensely beautiful poems celebrate her passionate union with her husband, Simon. One is a “letter” to him when “Absent on Public Appointment.”

My head, my heart, my eyes, my life—Nay, more
My joy, my magazine of earthly store.
If we be one, as surely thou and I,
How stay’st thou there, while I in Ipswich lye?

For me, these

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Anne Hutchinson was one of our culture’s most remarkable women: deeply educated, intellectually acute, socially contributive, disturbingly determined. In her three years in Massachusetts Bay Colony, no one did so much to serve it and to divide it.

She came to the colony in 1634 not for religious freedom, but to practice the true faith. Her father, a minister and teacher, had educated her deeply. She and her husband had become followers of Rev. John Cotton, forced to escape

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On Presidents’ Day a few Americans—maybe—gave some thought to the contributions of Washington and Lincoln to the creation of a more democratic society—gifts both limited and essential.

Puritans also deserve some credit for establishing the world’s most democratic and egalitarian society early.

1. They initially distributed land in equal arable proportions to all except ministers, who were given two so they could hire someone to plow while they wrote sermons, etc.
2. They insisted on providing a solid education for all, men

On February 14, 1639, when John Winthrop was off in London arranging a charter for what would become Massachusetts, he added a postscript to his letter to his wife “Thou must be my valentine.” Valentine’s Day was not recognized in the short Puritan calendar of holidays, but every letter the couple wrote testified to their intensity of love.

Love is not the first word to come to mind when Puritanism comes up, but human sexual passion was much a part

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• reflect on some of our guiding principles – love God