Lobby Sign
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For 30 years, visitors to our church were greeted by a large plaque on the lobby wall that read "Here Be No Man a Stranger." As the years passed, it became apparent that the word "man" in that phrase was increasingly failing to express the inclusive welcome that was intended. A committee of volunteers saw this as an opportunity for the congregation to deepen its awareness of gender language. In December, 1991, after a campaign of discussion and fund-raising sponsored by them, the church installed a new plaque that read "Here Let No One Be a Stranger."
There was more to it, however, than a simple change of words. For one thing the original plaque was an integral part of our landmark Louis Kahn building. Moreover, its wording, which came from a hymn written by a beloved minister, had been a slogan of the congregation for decades. The solution was to create a new plaque with gender-inclusive language and install it on top of the old one in a way that permits it to be easily removed to show the original. This approach left the architecture intact and also preserved the "archeological layers" of UU thinking.
| The original inscription is taken from the hymn "Here Be No Man a Stranger" by William Channing Gannett, Parish Minister at First Unitarian from 1889 to 1908. |  |
| The chalice design on the new sign was created by Sharon Addams, and the plaque itself was crafted by Dan Kummerow. |  |
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May 1 2008