The morning started with my first outdoor scrimmage of the season. I played at wing midfield for a good 60 minutes but had to leave early so that I could shower and make it to church in time to see Jeanine and Maya speaking briefly about their Coming of Age adventure to India and lighting the Social Action candle. Afterwards I was able to take a few portraits of Maya with Jeanine and Nicolai.

Maya’s Message to the congregation:

My mom and I are happy to light this candle today for all the 243 girls who attend the school where we spent 3 weeks in Western rural, India. They are: Sonu, Runda, Devida, Jesshiree; girls from the Worli and Katkari tribes, who have a wonderful opportunity to go to school in a “racist free” environment because of the Unitarian church and Holdeen Program. Like so many service experiences, we received more love, attention, education, and friendship than we could possibly reciprocate with our teaching. To slow down and admire the beauty of a chameleon, to take time every night to talk to each other about all we had experienced and to laugh at ourselves with humility….. This is what it means to have a shared coming of age experience together. Allowing ourselves these life changing moments to be completely vulnerable so that we could learn about courage and learn a new way to relate to each other. May more mothers and daughters know how to have this together, to step out of their roles as wise and young and step into a shared experience of the unknown, both completely vulnerable and both equally curious so that they may know each other and life in a completely new way.

For Easter dinner we were joined by my nephew John William Quinn and two classmates from Babson, Radhika and Roy.